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Review Author
Frank Landrus
Published on
August 2, 2020
Company
Master Model
Scale
1/350
MSRP
$20.00

SMS Seydlitz was a battlecruiser of the German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy), built in Hamburg. She was ordered in 1910 and commissioned in May 1913, the fourth battlecruiser built for the High Seas Fleet. She was named after Friedrich Wilhelm von Seydlitz, a Prussian general during the reign of King Frederick the Great and the Seven Years' War. Seydlitz represented the culmination of the first generation of German battlecruisers, which had started with the Von der Tann in 1906 and continued with the pair of Moltke-class battlecruisers ordered in 1907 and 1908. Seydlitz featured several incremental improvements over the preceding designs, including a redesigned propulsion system and an improved armor layout. As with the rest of the German battlecruisers that survived the war, the ship was interned in Scapa Flow in 1918. The ship, along with the rest of the High Seas Fleet, was scuttled in June 1919, to prevent her seizure by the British Royal Navy.

Review Author
Frank Landrus
Published on
August 2, 2020
Company
Master Model
Scale
1/350
MSRP
$20.00

HMS Lord Nelson was a pre-dreadnought battleship launched 04-September-1906 and completed in 1908. Her sister ship in the class was HMS Agamemnon also launched 23-June-1906 and completed in 1908. The delays between launching and completion of both ships was due to the diversion of their 12” guns to the completion of HMS Dreadnought. She was the Royal Navy's last pre-dreadnought. The ship was flagship of the Channel Fleet when the First World War began in 1914. Lord Nelson was transferred to the Mediterranean Sea in early 1915 to participate in the Dardanelles Campaign. She remained there, becoming flagship of the Eastern Mediterranean Squadron, which was later re-designated the Aegean Squadron. After the Ottoman surrender in 1918 the ship moved to the Black Sea where she remained as flagship before returning to the United Kingdom in May 1919. Lord Nelson was placed into reserve upon her arrival and sold for scrap in June 1920.

Book Author(s)
Krzysztof Janowicz
Review Author
Floyd S. Werner Jr.
Published on
August 1, 2020
Company
Kagero Publishing
MSRP
$39.95

Kagero has released books of various aircraft in the past. This is their 12th edition of the Mongraph Specials and focuses on the FW-190 short nosed variants. The beautifully hard bound book has over 250 pages of high quality paper. It has all the hallmarks of Kagero’s other books.

There are plenty of clear, large pictures throughout the book. There are also some exquisite color profiles that are an inspiration to any would be modeler or historian. On top of that there are some first rate line drawings in the book as well as separate 1/48 and 1/32nd scale fold out drawings for the FW-190A5 and A-8 that are absolutely gorgeous. There are 1/72nd scale drawings included in the book. Now that all sounds great, so lets see if the contents match the highlights.

Book Author(s)
Ian Baxter
Review Author
Will Kuhrt
Published on
August 4, 2020
Company
Pen & Sword
MSRP
$15.00

Thank you Bill & Phil for all you do for the Reviewers and for the opportunity to review this publication.

Pen & Sword has released another outstanding book belonging to the Images of War series. As with other Images of War publications, it is a photographic essay detailing the pathway of General Paulus’ 6th Army annihilation at Stalingrad.

The Read

The book begins with a prelude which provides important information about the movements of the three German Army groups in Russia during 1941, and how and why the command chain changed allowing Friedrich Paulus to be appointed command of the 6th Army. Through four chapters, the reader is taken via photographs and text through the struggles of the 6th Army in their quest to fulfill Hitler’s misguided dream of conquering Stalingrad and ultimately Russia.

Review Author
Paul R. Brown
Published on
August 4, 2020
Company
Reskit
Scale
1/72
MSRP
$9.80

This set provides a pair of replacement seats for the pilot and co-pilot of a CH-53 or MH-53 Super Stallion/Sea Stallion and includes seatbelts/harnesses, the tubular frame the seat is mounted on and what appears to be add-on side armor plates for each seat.

The seats and mounting frames are cast in light grey resin. The castings are very detailed and delicate, a little too delicate as I will discuss below. The seats include a lot of details on the seat backs that could be visible if you leave the main cabin door open. I compared the seats and the mounting frames to photos I found online and ResKit did their homework as it looks accurate and in scale. The casting includes a very tiny slot at the top of the seat that the upper section of the shoulder harness passes through, but be very gentle as the resin around the slot is very thin and it is very easy to break off the headrest section – trust me!