Every so often as a reviewer, you end up with a product that wasn’t quite what you thought it was. Thus was the start of this, where I had volunteered to review this new set from Aires covering A-7 landing gear bays in 1/48. However I thought they were for the Hasegawa kit, but alas, they are for the Hobbyboss kit! Knowing this occasionally happens to us as modelers, where we walk out of store with the latest aftermarket treasure only to find it’s for the other manufacturer’s kit, I set about to see how this set would fit in the Hasegawa 1/48 A-7E.

Wow, just looking at this piece has given me a re-found respect for you Braille-scale builders! I don’t see how you can do it. I have enough troubles bending and gluing photo-etched parts. I will learn to start soldering them soon. Can’t even imagine trying to do it 1/72 scale. That is an issue anyone that buys this kit will need to overcome.

Mini World appears to be a relatively new company or at least a new off shoot from a company in the Ukraine. There were many companies that carried their line (all overseas) but only Hannants had this particular item listed on their website. Mini World does not have a website of its own. Their items are pretty impressive. They currently have 18 different machine guns on the market. Most are for WWI aircraft but I did also notice two different DShK kits available as well.

Most Dragon models today are a collection of old sprues and new sprues added to create a new kit variant. In this case, Dragon has done so and in this case, redid the areas that had zimmerit applied. This being said, you have many options that need to be reviewed and decided on before you start this kit.

Steps 1, 2, & 3 - Lower Hull

As with most armor kits, the first step is the running gear. Remember those choices I mentioned in the paragraph above, well, here is the first one. You have a choice of two slightly different drive sprockets. The second choice is between the end caps over the bogie springs, and the third is the choice of mufflers.

The instructions give you two sets of muffler and you will need to drill out some locating holes depending on which muffler type you have chosen.

Master Box Ltd. is a company that makes many different injected molded kits with an emphasis on making their products for dioramas. Their kits have a huge range of themes and accessories for dioramas, including figures of people and various animals, carts, WWII tanks & motorcycles to mention a few. Each kit tells a story of its own and together can bring your diorama to a better level of realism. I know they have been around from at least 2006 but however long it might be, their products seem to be excellent.

Brief History

(taken from the photographic reference manual provided in kit).

Original conceived in 1915, as a little torpedo boat early prototypes were a failure due to the heavy weight of the torpedo. Soon afterwards, Italy entered WWI and more of the boats were ordered. Development never ceased, and by the end of WWI over 244 MAS's were in service. The first true torpedo MAS gained considerable fame by sinking the Austrian Battleships Wien and Szent Istvan.

Development of the boats continued thru the 20's and 30's. Speed was essential and improvements were made to the hull and more powerful engines installed. Finally the much sought after 40 knots was achieved in MAS 424 in 1928. Three 500 hp Isotta Fraschini Asso engines powered the boat.