Reviews

Review Author
Paul R. Brown
Published on
Company
Eduard
Scale
1/72
MSRP
$12.95

This decal sheet states that it was designed exclusively for use with Eduard’s outstanding 1/72 Fw 190A series of kits. The sheet provides seven different styles of Balkenkreuze, consisting of the simple white outline Balkenkreuze for the upper wings, and three options for both the fuselage and the underwing Balkenkreuze. There are the simple black Balkenkreuze outline, a solid black Balkenkreuze with a white border and the solid black Balkenkreuze with the white outline and a thin black outline outside of the white. This provides a lot of options to match the style Balkenkreuze used on the aircraft you are modeling.

As with all of Eduard’s new decals, these are very thin, but strong and react extremely well to Microsol and Microset, snuggling right down over details without silvering.

Book Author(s)
Neil R. Storey
Review Author
Frank Landrus
Published on
Company
Bloomsbury Publishing
MSRP
$14.00

Neil R. Storey attended North Walsham High School and completed is pre- and post-graduate work at the University of East Anglia. is a social and military historian focused on the impact of crime, war, and medicine on British society. He has been writing since the late 1980s and has pursued military, historical crime, and topographical topics. Author of nearly fifty books, including: Animals in the First World War (2014), The Women’s Land Army (2012), The Women’s Suffrage Movement (2012), The Battle of Britain (2012), The Victorian Criminal (2011), Women in the Second World War (2011), Women in the First World War (2010), The Home Guard (2010). Neil continues to write articles for national magazines and national journals in addition to providing lectures across the UK. He has served as a consultant for both radio and television.

Book Author(s)
Leroy Thompson; Illustrators: Adam Hook, Alan Gilliland
Review Author
Pablo Bauleo
Published on
Company
Osprey Publishing
MSRP
$20.00

Osprey Publishing continues to expand its weapon series, this time by adding a book on the exemplary Finnish-made Suomi KP/-31 submachine gun.

The book has a very reasonable breakdown of the following chapters: Introduction, development, use, impact, conclusion and bibliography, plus an index.

I’ve found particularly interesting the development, use and impact chapters. They were clearly really well researched and it included descriptions of the weapon characteristics, as well as the description of its use in combat by the Finnish ski troops against the Soviet troops. It should be noted that this submachine gun could also be used as a sniper gun, giving its high accuracy up to distances of several hundred meters.

Perhaps one of the best compliments to the overall design and performance is that this particular submachine gun was somewhat copied by the soviets and issued to their own troops in the later years of the war.

Book Author(s)
Robert Peczkowski
Review Author
Dick Montgomery
Published on
Company
Mushroom Model Publications - MMP Books
MSRP
$24.00

You can view the book trailer for this publication at this YouTube video. This video provides a preview of the entire book, cover to cover.

Written by Robert Peczkowski with color profiles by Artur Juszczak, this book covers the evolution of the Bf-109E from 1936 to 1941, from the E-0 to the E-9 in the “Emil” series. This is the second, expanded, and revised edition of an MMP book covering the Bf-109E.

Review Author
Paul R. Brown
Published on
Company
Quickboost
Scale
1/72
MSRP
$5.50

This is the second detailing set from Quickboost for the new Trumpeter Su-24 Fencer kits and focuses on the external antennas. The set includes replacements for 3 of the antennas in the kit and provides 5 others that are not in the kit. As the set is market simply for the Trumpeter Su-24, you may need to alter the antenna locations a little bit depending on whether you are building the Su-24MR or the Su-24M.

The antennas are sharply cast in Quickboost’s standard resin and the castings not only include the individual antennas, but also the mounting plate by which the antenna is attached to the aircraft. The antennas are easily separated from the cast block, either with a razor saw or even with sprue nippers. I removed the antennas one at a time, sanded down the mounting plate and then attached the antenna with superglue before moving on to the next antenna.

Review Author
Rob Benson
Published on
Company
Eduard
Scale
1/72
MSRP
$74.95

Thank you to the great folks at Eduard for reissuing and upgrading a kit of a unique Sikorsky flying boat for the scale modeling world. Thank you also to the IPMS Reviewer Corps staff members who do the hard work in getting us kits to review, the reviews posted, and the news spread to the world.

The Sikorsky JRS-1, or S-43, is similar in appearance to the famous Pan Am Clipper, the S-42. I did not know that several of these planes survived the Pearl Harbor attack, and went in search of the Japanese fleet immediately afterward.

Review Author
Bill Kluge
Published on
Company
Hasegawa
Scale
1/350
MSRP
$329.99

The Ship

Originally laid down as the luxury liner Kashiwara Maru in 1939, Junyo (along with her sister Hiyo) was part of an IJN subsidized building program of commercial and auxiliary vessels that could be quickly converted into aircraft carriers if the need arose. She was taken in hand by the Navy and commissioned in 1942 in time to participate in the Aleutians invasion in June, part of the overall Midway operation.

Review Author
Scott Hollingshead
Published on
Company
PJ Production
Scale
1/32
MSRP
$12.32

Are you looking to add a little life to your 1/32 scale F-16 Fighting Falcon? If so, you may want to consider the latest release in this scale from the folks at PJ Production. This is the third PJ Production figure that I have had the pleasure of reviewing, and like the other two, assembly was easy, with minimal part clean-up being required. The detail is reasonable for this scale, and the figure can be used with the Tamiya, Hasegawa, or Academy kit. The only modeling skill required involves painting a figure; otherwise, I would recommend this as an item manageable by modelers of nearly any skill level.

Book Author(s)
Bert Kinzey and Rock Roszak
Review Author
Rob Benson
Published on
Company
Detail & Scale, Inc.
MSRP
$9.99

Thank you to Bert Kinzey and Rock Roszak for continuing to bring back a tremendous resource for the modeler, exclusively in a digital format. Thank you to the IPMS Reviewer Corps for allowing me to test out this new and exciting method of researching history, details, versions and markings of the Convair F-102 Delta Dagger. The official title is F-102 Delta Dagger in Detail & Scale, Digital Volume 6.

Review Author
Paul R. Brown
Published on
Company
Quickboost
Scale
1/72
MSRP
$7.00

Last year Trumpeter released a pair of very nice Su-24 kits, replacing the old Dragon kits. This set is one of two released by Aires/Quickboost to upgrade some of the Trumpeter parts. The set consists of five parts: the inflight refueling probe, the refueling probe door that covers part of the probe when it is retracted, the bay into which the probe retracts and the two fuel dump pipes under the engines.