Piaggo P.108B
As a result of the
advanced development work carried on by Piaggio during the
1930's the
company had the distinction of building the only four engine
heavy
bomber to be employed by the Regia Aeronautica during the
Second World
War. Although the production figures were insignificant
compared to the
number of heavy bombers built by the United States and Great
Britain,
The P.108B was an excellent machine bearing a strong
resemblance to the
B-17, but differing greatly in detail. The prototype flew in
1939
powered by four 1500 hp, eighteen cylinder engines. An
outstanding
innovation was the use of two wing mounted turrets, each with
two
12.7-mm machine guns operated by remote control from sighting
domes
atop the fuselage. Two additional 12.7-mm guns were in the
nose and
semi-retractable ventral turrets, while two more guns were
operated from
lateral hatches, making a total defensive armament of eight
weapons,
extremely heavy by Italian standards. The maximum bomb load
was 7.720
lb. Alternatively, three torpedoes could be carried.
So successful was the prototype that an initial batch of
twelve
pre-production machines was followed by substantial orders (by
Italian
standards) were placed and 163 aircraft were eventually
produced. The
P.108B's took part in night raids on Gibraltar, having been
fitted with
flame dampers on the exhausts and having the nose turret
removed. The
surprise had a great effect psychologically as it was not know
at that
time that Italy possessed bombers with that range. The P.108B
later served in the
North African and Russian theaters and in all operations over
the
Mediterranean Sea. At the end of the war only three P.108B's
survived.
Large numbers were lost during wartime operations although
it's open to
debate whether the majority were lost due to enemy action or
to
possible failures of the bombers themselves.
The Kit
The
Special Hobby Piaggo P.108 comes in one of their standard end
flap
boxes that everyone loves to hate. On the front of the box is
nice
artwork of the aircraft in flight. Inside the box is one bag
which
contains all of the parts except for the resin parts which are
bagged
separately in a zip lock bag. The clear parts are injection
molded but
were mixed in with the rest of the injection molded parts,
never a good
thing but in my kit they were unscathed. The parts are molded
in a dark
gray plastic and feature recessed panel lines. The panel lines
are
uniform and typical size wise for the scale. The surface has a
matte
finish but is quite smooth and I found no sink marks or other
surface
irregularities on any of the parts. There was some minor
scuffing on
the parts from shipping.
The
control surfaces are all fixed and the
fabric areas were light and very nicely done. The demarcation
lines
around the control surfaces were a little shallow for my
liking but
that's easy enough to fix. The parts had a light amount of
flash on
them but not bad for a limited run kit and as usual no
alignment pins.
There were no ejector pin marks that will show after assembly.
The
propellers are the assemble yourself variety that the European
manufacturers seem to like. The tires have nice hub detail, no
tread
and are not weighted.