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Vietnam may have been a controversial war, but there’s no denying that it brought together an amazing assortment of military hardware. It was the era of supersonic jet fighters working alongside piston-powered leftovers from the Second World War. It was in this environment that Douglas’ Invader gave its final military performance.

Invaders had been flying in Southeast Asia since the days of French Indo-China, but when they started losing their wings in a series of structural failures the decision was made to put the venerable bombers through an upgrade and life extension program. On-Mark Engineering in California, a company known for putting Douglas’ bomber through some heavy modifications and turning them into top of the line business planes received the contract to upgrade 41 airframes.

Deliveries started in 1964 and the B-26K (later designated A-26A) quickly proved its metal attacking the famous Ho Chi Minh Trail – alone, at night and at low level. It was a hostile environment and several Counter-Invaders were lost to enemy fire. In 1989 the A-26As reached the end of their life extension and were retired from service.

There’s just something about the Counter-Invaders that makes modellers want to build one. The basic Invader looks aggressive, but with camouflage war paint and all that weaponry hanging off the wings, the Counter-Invader looks down right mean.

Although Airfix had produced a 1/72nd scale Invader back in the 1970s, it really was a product of its time. Raised surface details, fictions rivet details, poor fitting control surfaces and very little detail inside the cockpit, bomb bay and wheel wells.

Thankfully that changed when Italeri released its Counter-Invader. I was pleased to add a B-26K to my collection, but thanks to the cross-boxing of various A-26 variants, the Counter-Invader lost some of the important parts that distinguished itself from the older models. Chief among these changes are a longer rudder, a second pilot’s station in the cockpit, wrong engine faces for the upgraded engines, and the wheels and brakes from a Boeing C-135.

As an (almost) out of the box build, I simply followed the instructions. However there were several places that needed heavy applications of liquid putty. The forward canopy and the plugs for blanking off the upper and lower gun turret positions needed a touch of putty. They’re not as wide and the fuselage. Even the clear canopies seem a hair undersized, but with some patience it’s possible to have a balanced look.

I should point out that although the True Details resin wheels go a long way to correcting the look of the Counter-Invader, all they did was split their KC-135 set apart. These wheels were originally tooled to fit the AMT KC-135, and if you look closely the nose wheel is actually too big for the Invader.

My marking choice was the 609th Special Operations Squadron option that Italeri included in the kit. There aren’t a lot of markings, but the decals did respond well to my setting solution treatment – despite looking like they were printed on wax paper.

The biggest error is in the nose art, which appears closer to 1/48th scale. I used the bigger decal because, let’s face it, I like naked ladies.