Dragon, in its Six-Day War series, has already produced a 1/35 scale kit of an Israel Defense Forces M3 halftrack, and now another interesting variant is available for modelers. This new kit features an M3 with Nord Aviation SS-11 wire-guided antitank missiles, which was done to strengthen the offensive capability of IDF halftracks. This kit will attract a lot of interest when sitting in your model display.

Opening the Box

This sturdy Dragon box is filled with lots of plastic, a lot of it going to the spares bin.

The kit includes:

• 15 sprues molded in light grey plastic
• One sprue molded in clear plastic
• One small square of photo-etch parts
• Small brass length of chain
• Slide molded drive and idler wheels packaged in a separate baggy

The kit also includes decals for two vehicles:

Jean-Christophe Carbonel was born in 1959 and wrote his first modelling article in 1977. He graduated from the University of Paris I: Pantheon-Sorbonne in 1979 and followed up with a diploma from Sciences Po in 1981. He currently is a senior auditor at Le Groupe La Poste. His first solo work in English language was in 1991 for the British magazine Collecting Scale Models. He admits that part of his knowledge of the English language came from reading the Airfix instruction sheets, which were, at the time still English-only. Since then, he has pursued a writing career specializing in model kit history and in the history of aviation projects, prototypes, and early experimentals. Jean-Christophe has more recently specialized in French designs of all eras. Writing for various magazines on both sides of the Channel, French Secret Projects 2 is at least his thirteenth book.

Many already know that Scale Aircraft Conversions has been pumping out replacement, white metal landing gear sets for some few years now. I believe that this endeavor (Scale Aircraft Conversions) began as a way to provide you, dear modeler, with a sturdier option than what was being supplied by the kit manufacturer. While kit supplied landing gear and struts may have been to scale they were sometimes unable to handle the actually weight of the completed model.

To help solve that issue, Scale Aircraft Conversions has an extensive line of landing gear sets for an extensive number of kits. Adding to that line is a new one designed for the Eduard's series of MiG-21's in 1/144th scale. Scale Aircraft Conversions includes two complete sets of landing gear with this offering. Which is a good thing as there are two complete kits in Eduard's boxing of the 1/144th scale MiG-21.

This set is part of Eduard’s growing line of Steel seat belts sets. The set consists of 3 sets of seat seatbelts and shoulder harnesses for Yakovlev World War II fighters and 3 sets for Lavochkin World War II fighters. The set will particularly useful for dressing up the cockpit of an older kit. I had an old Italeri La-5 kit that has been in my stash for quite some time, so I pulled it out to see how the belts worked.

Osprey Publishing continues to expand its “Combat” Series, this time with a book on what is possibly the largest urban battle in military history: Stalingrad.

The book is organized as follows:

• Introduction
• The Opposing Sides
• The Tractor Factory (October 1942)
• The Barrikady Gun Factory (November 1942)
• The Komissarhaus (November 1942)
• Analysis
• Aftermath

The Introduction section covers the overall strategic situation at the time of the Battle of Stalingrad. The Opposing Sides chapter describes the equipment and general tactics of both the German Pioneer (Assault Troops) and the Soviet Rifleman (Infantry). These two types of soldiers had different training, tactics, and weapons.