This latest release in the New Vanguard series by Osprey Publishing helps to fill the void of the history of USMC armor. The 48 page format of the series makes it necessary to limit the amount of information; thusly, there is no coverage of the armored amphibious assault vehicles. This issue only covers land-based armored vehicles. Perhaps we will be blessed in the future with another volume that will concentrate on the LVTs. This issue does, however, give a brief history of the early beginnings of Marine armor, starting with the US copy of the Renault FT, the M1917, as well as the barely adequate Marmon-Herrington tankette. Early US Navy shipping restrictions required lightly armored small tanks that proved to be under powered and under armed. Eventually, the Marines were equipped with the M2 and M3 series of light tanks that saw a baptism of fire on Guadalcanal.

Lead ship of the Queen Elizabeth-class of dreadnaught battleships, the HMS Queen Elizabeth was named after Elizabeth I of England, and would see service in and survive both of the World Wars. Launched on 16 October 1913 in Portsmouth, Hampshire, this ship was commissioned in 1915 and was not decommissioned until 1948, when she was scrapped. The ship as built had a displacement of 33,020 tons, a length of 640 feet 10 ½ inches, a beam of 90 feet 6 inches, and a draft of 30 feet 6 inches. Propelled by a total of twenty-four boilers (using oil instead of coal), her four turbines could move the ship at twenty-four knots as a top speed, or for 8600 nautical miles at 12.5 knots, or for 3900 nautical miles at 21 knots. Her main armament consisted of eight fifteen-inch guns, as well as sixteen six-inch guns and two three-inch anti-aircraft guns.

My husband (and model coach) first built the Strange Changing Vampire kit when it initially came out in 1974 at the tender age of 11. When he heard that Round 2 Models was releasing a re-issue, he jumped at the chance to present me with my third model build. Being a “monster kid,” I was excited with this opportunity to build my second Round 2 model and add it to my growing collection of built kits. My mind’s eye pictures this piece billed in some side show, with a barker calling out “Come see the strange changing vampire! Watch the skeleton change into a real live vampire right before your eyes!” I imagined my husband as an 11 year old boy, opening the coffin to see a dead, decaying skeleton; then eagerly closing it and using the key to work the “strange change action”. With delight, he would then reopen the coffin, revealing the scary vampire with bared fangs, ready to grab him for a midnight snack!