Today I was determined to get what I hope is correct information on the field installed twin .030 caliber rear firing weapons for this Midway SBD. So I spent a lot of time online and searching through my books.

Here's what I found. Most of the answers were found in my book called "SBD Dauntless in Action" by Squadron. These pictures were studied and as I was on line I checked out various restored SBD's. They all seem to match.

Here's how the single rear facing .030 caliber weapon was installed on the SBD-2 and original equipment on early dash 3's.

This illustration shows how they were field modified to carry twin .030's.

Next followed by the standard installation found on late model SBD dash 3's.

This picture shows all together and a nice picture showing the rear gunners position with twin .030's.

A few pages over in the book shows this photo of a SBD during the Midway battle.

This is the same picture after I zoomed in on it. You can see the sliding doors are open.

With this information in hand, and knowing that Accurate Miniatures offered different plastic sprues for the SBD, I searched through the several AM boxing's of the SBD kits I have on hand. I found a sprue that has the proper twin .030 guns and sliding fuselage panels. These pictures shows the two different AM fuselage sprues.

This photo is zoomed in on the single .030 plastic tree. This is correct for the early dash three's prior to Midway. It also shows the earlier raised air intake that was on the top of the cowling.

and the correct twin .030 plastic tree for a Midway build... which also has the smaller air intake. It's part number #283.

In this photo you can see the difference in the rear of the fuselage where the rear cockpit has the sliding panels. This one is for the later field modified Dash 3 versions.

This is the correct fuselage I needed for the Midway SBD (to the best of my knowledge).

There's also a small difference on one of the fuselage bulk heads. This one has a more vertical shape to it and is much thinner near the pilots head rest area. I think this is where the armor plating for the pilot was mounted.

This last picture shows how much wider the panel is behind the pilots head rest and seat area. This is correct for a Midway SBD.

The last picture shows the instrument panel after it was sprayed with interior green. The clear spot in the center is where I was holding the part with tweezers. This part is molded in clear plastic.

I accidentally mixed up more Model Master "Interior Green" than I actually needed. I didn't want to waste the paint. So I sprayed it out on a very old original boxing of the Monogram TBD Devastator that I picked up at a swap meet years ago. Now I might be a biting off more than I can chew, but I may have just started another "Midway" group build...

The Monogram TBD. Now I just have to decide on what markings to use...

Looks like ti's coming right along. I had my doubts about some of their painting instructions for the cockpit sidewalls. I've got the Detail and Scale to refer to.

Tonight as the old Monogram Devastator was drying, I made some progress with the cockpit. Step two is now done.

The cockpit floor and instrument panel.

Here's a picture:

The Windsor and Newton "oil colour" works wonders. The light oil wash really made this assembly pop.

Hopefully it will not be too much longer Rick and you can see your spinner again. The next time you get to see your old spinner, I hope that it's mounted on the kits propeller ...

Time will tell and thanks again for sending it to me.

Looking good Louis, you've made the detail in the cockpit really pop.

Great attention to detail on the gunners ring. I noticed that there are two what look like pads at the rear of the ring, which I suspect are a padded cushion for the gunners back, like on the TBD mount. That kinda makes sense. As a guess, I'd suspect they are leather covered padding, and ought to be painted black or brown.

Acc Min (as I mentioned before) seemed to believe you paint the whole interior except the instrument panel interior green, with little to NO differentiation. It ain't that easy.

Thanks for the compliments on my Dauntless. Here's a few pictures of the gunner's ring from the SBD at Pensacola. I went online to the US Naval Aviation Museum website and took these pictures with my phone. The NAM is a great website that has a ton of information about these planes. These pictures wouldn't have been possible without the virtual cockpit feature on their website.

This should help to answer your questions about the ring mount Bernard.

If you look closely at the padded areas they appear to be a molded foam or rubber material that is interior green in color. I don't know if these pads were covered with a vinyl or if they were solid molded but they're definitely green. It also looks like the seat has a black colored cushion. At some time this rear seat was modified to include a back rest support. It is inside the padded ring and connects to the seat bottom.

I just had to add this amazing picture seen from the rear gunner's point of view. It's probably as close as most of us will get to experience what it might have been like ...

The internet is amazing.

Hi Louis, I bulit SBD-5 in 2010 - it was ACC re-packed by Italeri.
I would like to inspire you a bit.
This is finished Dauntless.
http://www.modelforum.cz/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=49298

• some pictures from cockpit.

It was hard build mainly due to flaps implementation, but it got the kit to completely new level.
I used also positive nitting by HGW, but this was pure masochism that I would not repeat any more, however the effect was stunning.

3 attached images. Click to enlarge.