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Book Author(s)
Darias Karnas and Zygmunt Szeremeta
Review Author
Brian R. Baker
Published on
September 16, 2020
Company
Mushroom Model Publications - MMP Books
MSRP
$11.99

This book is part of a series of highly specialized coverages of specific World War II aircraft types and is intended for serious scale modelers who work in 1/72, 1/48, and 1/32 scale. This book covers the Mitsubishi A6M-5 Zero 52 fighter and serves mainly as a reference for specific details of this particular aircraft type. There is little text other than the captions for photos and drawings, and only covers a few specific aircraft that have survived in museums throughout the world. In this case, the planes in the Imperial War Museum in England, and the Planes of Fame Museum in Chino, California are shown. The Chino airplane may still be flyable, and I recall seeing it flying years ago. One of the photos of it also shows the museum’s P-51D and North American O-47A in the background.

Review Author
Gino Dykstra
Published on
January 4, 2021
Company
ICM
Scale
1/32
MSRP
$69.99

The siege of Malta – a small island in the Mediterranean Sea – held by the British from 1940 to 1942 against the combined might of the German and Italian air and sea forces is one of the more memorable stories from World War 2. Directly on the route from Europe to North Africa, it was a thorn in the side of the Axis supply line to their forces duking it out for control of Libya and Algeria. They decided to reduce the island and its garrison as a threat, and Malta became the most bombed area of land in the entire war. Only a few fighters were on the island during the early months of the siege, and they were the already-obsolete Sea Gladiators of the Royal Navy. Totaling six in all, three of them became famous in military lore as “Faith, Hope and Charity”, fighting off incessant bombing by the Italian and German air forces and earning themselves a place in history.

Review Author
Scott Hollingshead
Published on
September 15, 2020
Company
AMMO by Mig Jimenez
MSRP
$8.20

As I sit writing this review, I cannot help but think that I should just be returning from seeing some of you at the IPMS Nationals in San Marcos. Well, hopefully there are better days ahead, and I do already have my hotel reservation set for Las Vegas next year. Like many of you, I have met some great folks over the years and look forward to seeing at least some of those folks again in the future, and meeting even more fellow modelers.

So how much can you really say about masking sheets? Well, this new set from Mig contains five sheets measuring 280 by 195mm or roughly 7-11/16 by 11-1/16 inches, which seems to be a pretty good value for the price. The sheets are yellow in color for the masking material with a slightly rough texture. I measure the masking material as 0.0035 inch or 0.08 mm in thickness with an adhesive similar to that used by Tamiya on their masking tapes as far as “stickiness” is concerned.

Review Author
Blaine Singleton
Published on
September 15, 2020
Company
David Union
MSRP
$125.00

John Miller, IPMS member and owner of Model Paint Solutions (modelpaintsol.com) has an electric pencil sander called the David 400 (D400) on his web site. The sander has a wall cord that plugs in the back of the sander, fits nicely in the hand, and is very comfortable to use.

When I first saw the tool, I thought why do I need an electric sander? I have an abundance of sanding tools already. It just so happened that I was working on the Airfix 1/72 scale Tiger Moth and had a very small area to sand under the horizontal stabilizer. With that small an area to be sanded and the delicate nature of the sanding that had to be done, I thought the D400 would have made the job a lot easier and faster.

Book Author(s)
Javier Garcia de Gabiola; Illustrators: Luca Canossa; Anderson Subtil; Tom Cooper
Review Author
Frank Landrus
Published on
September 15, 2020
Company
Helion & Company
MSRP
$24.95

Javier Garcia de Gabiola, is from Spain and works as a lawyer. He has published numerous articles and books related to legal issues. Always interested in military history, he also regularly contributes to various Spanish military history magazines, for which he has written more than 50 articles and has published multiple pieces with the Universidad Autónoma de México. This is his first instalment for Helion’s @War series.

Helion is a UK based company that produces books on many aspects of Military History from the Late Medieval period through to the present day. Helion was established in 1996, and since then they have published almost 1,200 books, with 100 or more new titles coming out every year, for readers around the world.