Martin 167 Maryland & 187 Baltimore

[Mossie]

There's got to be a few whiffs possible with the Maryland & Baltimore as although they were built in the US, they only saw service with foreign air arms.  They did receive the designations A-22 & A-23/A-30.

The immediate ideas are plugging them straight into roles met by the A-20 Havoc/Boston, night fighter, cannon nose, Turbinlite etc.  Maybe some dedicated anti-shipping or coastal patrol aircraft?

[jcf]

Martin proposed a Model 167 re-engined with Wright R-2600s in the attack bomber contest won by the Douglas DB-7A.
This became the basis of the Model 187.


The XA-23 would have been powered by a pair of Wright R-3350. 
Martin also proposed a stretched 187 with extra fuel tanks and an internal torpedo bay as an anti-shipping aircraft,
a solid-nose ground attack version and a long range fighter. In late 1943 two Mark Vs weer equipped with nose
radomes as prototypes for an A-30C/Baltimore VI G.R. maritime recce version.

[Mossie]

Thanks Jon, not surprisingly Martin came to similar conclusions that I did.

Nice diagram of the internal layout of the XA-22, I'd heard that the crews found the Maryland tight, but a picture is worth a thousand words 'n all that.    I guess that there wasn't much point in developing the Maryland as was due to this lack of space, the 187 was more or less the 'Martin 167 mark 2'.

A reasonable choice in kits.  For the Maryland, an old but serviceable Frog kit (plus the usual re-boxing suspects) & more modern Azur short run kit in 1/72, a Fonderie Miniatures short run & Koster vacform in 1/48.  For the Baltimore, Azur 1/72 kit & Classic Airframes.  Seems to plenty of interest because there are several reviews out there & what I'd thought would be a five minute exercise has taken me ages, should have just provided a Goggle link!

Maryland
1/72 Frog kit
In-box review on Modelling Madness
In-box review of Eastern Express Re-box on SMAKR

1/72 Azur kit on IPMS Stockholm
In-box review on SMAKR

1/48 Fonderie Miniature kit In-box review on Hyperscale

1/48 Koster vacform kit on ARC
Full review on Swanny's Models
In-Box review on Modelling Madness
In-Box Review on Internet Modeller

Baltimore
1/72 Azur kit review on ARC
Another build on ARC
Build on Airfix Tribute Forum
In-Box review on SMAKR

1/48 Classic Airframes kit partial build on Hyperscale
1/48 Classic Airframes kit In-box review on Hyperscale
In-box review on Cyber Modeler

Phew!  What's the bet nobody bothers with anything but the first reviews???  Ah well, I started so I had to finish!

[beowulf]

interesting....i like the idea of the solid nose modification

ive got a Novo kit that would be nice to use but unfortunatly i need it for a RW group build elsewhere......................unless i pick up a Blenheim from somewhere to replace it   

[Jschmus]

If the DB-7/A-20 had been a bust, I imagine that might've left the door open for Martin.  A-23Ks in Vietnam?

[Mossie]

I guess the stretched version that Jon mentioned along with the R3350's would go some way to that?

[PR19_Kit]

A very talented hydraulic engineer, Prof. Alan Goldsmith, who taught me an awful lot in my formative years, was an air gunner with the SAAF in WWII. He flew with 21 Sqdn SAAF in the Middle East and later over Italy, on Marylands until they started the Italian operations. Alan said that switching to the B-26 was like moving into a much larger house! 

He was mid-upper gunner most of the time and reckoned just getting into position in a Maryland was a job for a contortionist.

In passing the most recent version of the Airfix B-26 has decals for Alan's aircraft included, they used my artwork for the aircraft that was published in a magazine some years back, and didn't even have the nicety to acknowledge it........ 

[jcf]

If the DB-7/A-20 had been a bust, I imagine that might've left the door open for Martin.  A-23Ks in Vietnam?

I suppose so, if the Douglas A-26/B-26 Invader series had never been developed,
and if there had been A through J models of the A-23 series.

BTW the 'K' on the B-26K (aka A-26A for Thai treaty reasons, there never was an A-26K designation) was not a
random assignment, and had nothing to do with it's COIN role, 'K' was simply the next available letter in the
sequence.

[Mossie]

Nice Czech Maryland!

[Weaver]

Noting from Jon's drawing that the bombadier had flight controls, how about a de-stepped version with a semi-retractable turret as a high-speed recce platform?

[Mossie]

How about going a step further with high altitude version?  Remove the glazing & replace it with a pressurised compartment, with either a small bubble canopy or a small faired windscreen.

[Weaver]

Yeah that's be an idea.  

Meanwhile, couldn't find a decent Baltimore 3-view to de-step, so here's a roughly done photo. This is robably more credible than the Maryland, since it doesn't involve and big structural change: just the removal of the cockpit "hump":

[rickshaw]

If you're going to de-step a the Maryland, why not go the whole hog? 

I've moved the nose section up to match the upper fuselage line and lost the bottom step. The whif-story is that Martin wanted to develop a pressurized, high-altitude bomber.

The pilot also acts as bombardier, the nav sits in the former cockpit location but has a bubble for aiming a B-29-style defensive barbetter (read: Maryland turret sanded and painted over). Any mis-alignment of the lower fuselage sections after the cuts turns into a space for wobble-mounted rear-firing guns fired by the pilot using mirrors. 

3-view drawings (zip files):
http://www.airwar.ru/other/draw/martinbaltimoretl.html
http://www.airwar.ru/other/draw/martinmarylandkr.html

Why not have the Navigator act as bomb-aimer?

[Weaver]

If you're going to de-step a the Maryland, why not go the whole hog? 

I would have done, but the profile I had was gear-down and unstepping the bottom changes the on-ground angle. Fixable, but not in my lunch time! 

[jcf]

Two pages of excellent XA-22 photos from the USAF Museum site:

http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet_media.asp?fsID=3011

While I'm at it here is the page for their historical aircraft galleries (arranged by type Pursuit, Cargo, Attack) etc:
http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/research/aircraft/index.asp

Apo's straight nose 167 puts it right into the running for a "pulp" cover art award with the XA-21. 

Jon