The B-26 Marauder earned an early bad rep as a widowmaker, trainee killer, etc due to some early design flaws that wreaked havoc on inexperienced and trained pilots alike. It wasn't till Martin fixed a lot of the outstanding issues that the Marauder became a much safer plane to fly. The Marauder still was tricky to fly especially with one engine, but it had the lowest overall combat loss rates of any bomber in the European Theater. It was declared obsolete before the German surrender and was quickly replaced by the A-26/B-26 Invader in medium bomber group at the end of WW2.

Hasegawa came out with an excellent rendition of the 1/72 B-26B/C and 1/72 B-26F/G in 2006. I am not an expert in the differences between the various models so I can not say which parts belong to which. What I do know is that these kits disappeared as quickly as they showed up here in North America as I was slow to purchase one and discovered to my dismay that the early bird does indeed get the Marauder.

Fast forward 13 years later and Eduard announced that they were going to release a reboxing with some photo etched parts, resin parts and a colorful decal sheet with markings from various ETO and MTO medium bomber groups. I was one of those that wasn't going to let my sloth get the better of me and ordered one as soon as it became available to preorder this kit.

This special edition contains the plastic for the Hasegawa kit which has been previewed by our editor. See the link for the details of the plastic kit. It also comes with a couple of Photo etch frets containing cockpit parts as well as replacement parts for the interior of the bomb bay, the ignition harness for the engines and scissor links for the landing gear among them. The special edition kit also comes with a set of resin wheels and a Khabuki tape masking set for the canopy and nose.

The main reason for this is the beautiful decal sheet which contains markings for eight bombers of various medium bomber groups (with two different schemes for one bomber.) Five of the schemes have the basic olive drab over neutral grey and the other four are bare metal or bare metal with olive drab. Some markings also require the painting of invasion stripes. Seven schemes include some form of well done naked lady nose art which is part of the reason this kit sold out so quickly.

This kit is a welcome update from Eduard of the rare (at least in North America) Hasegawa B-26 kit providing many colorful decal options for the modeler.

Dan Lee

August 2020

Copyright ModelingMadness.com