1/72 Douglas DB-7 Havoc Special Hobby SH72467
Douglas DB-7 Havoc Not long before the outbreak of WW2, France ordered the then newly developed DB-7 light bombers from the Douglas company in the USA. Some machines, powered by P&W R-1830 engines and fitted with a narrow and short tail fin, were actually received and deployed in combat in 1940. The French machines went on flying and fighting until 1945, sometimes also switching sides. Before its defeat in 1940, France was not able to take over all of the ordered machines so some of them went to Britain instead where they were operated as the Havoc Mk.I bombers. Next machines, which were powered with the Wright R-2600 and known as the Havoc Mk.II / Boston Mk.III followed. The first Havoc Mk.I versions flew in the light bomber role and were not equipped with a specialised night radar. The night flying Intruder machines were used to attack enemy’s airfields at night, while those of the airframes fitted with a radar, were used to defend the night skies over Britain.Our DB-7 Havoc Mk.I ‘Intruders’ kit set offers three all-black painted Intruder machines fitted with night exhausts and one bomber machine in a special test colour scheme. These machines were used by a couple of British ace pilots to achieve their first victories and were also used by Polish crews. There is one important thing associated with the Havoc exhausts-and that we learned about only after finishing the kit moulding tools. All the reference materials and scale drawings that we had, including those published in 2024, show engine exhaust only on the outboard side of the engine nacelles. While researching the camouflage schemes, it became clear that it is one of the long time repeated errors as the DB-7/Havoc Mk.I airframes did have the exhausts stacks on either side of the nacelles, ie on the outboard as well as on the inboard side. And so, our latest kit contains two pairs of night exhausts as well as two pairs of standard ones and also correction parts for the cowling flaps. The future release kits will already have the nacelle / exhaust area corrected.
