The Patriot missile system came into the limelight when it was deployed to allied bases during Operation Desert Shield/Storm. I remember a lot of footage of it being fired at incoming SCUD missiles, where it had some success. I have always wanted a Patriot system in my preferred scale, and Trumpeter has released the system with its prime hauler, the M983 HEMTT.

You get over 150 parts molded onto 7 sprues of gray plastic, a sprue of clear parts for the cab, a few extra parts, 14 rubber tires, a die-cut masking set for the windows, and decals. The instruction booklet leads you through the 16 steps of construction, and there is a separate Painting & Marking guide in full color with color call-outs for several brands of paints. Unfortunately, there are no detailed painting instructions for the engine, inside the cab, etc., so I used references from the internet for my build.

The Warpaint series should be remarkably familiar to most modelers. This is #147 in the series and covers the Nakajima Ki-43. The book covers the development of and the service history of the type. The most numerous and famous of the Japanese Army Air Force aircraft, it was comparable to the Japanese Navy’s A6M Zero. One of the interesting facts is that to Japanese people, the Ki-43 is more famous and revered than its counterpart, the Zero! So much so that it is often the aircraft of choice for anime producers.

The book is filled with many wartime and immediate postwar photographs. One of the best features is the substantial number of color profiles covering Japanese, Republic of China, Manchuko, US captured examples, Royal Thai, French, Communist China, and Indonesian examples. Nice color photos of the4 surviving examples are also included.

The period between 1920 and 1939 saw a rapid evolution in flight technology, not least in the field of fighter aircraft. The RAF ended WWI with a mix of fighters but by 1920 had standardized on the two-gun rotary-engine Sopwith Snipe, one of the most advanced fighters of the War. In the Twenties, aircraft development hardly evolved – mainly due to Government parsimony, the period ending with the Hawker Woodcock and Gloster Gamecock, which were still two-gun, fabric-covered biplanes with top speeds barely in advance of the Snipe. In the Thirties, the purse strings opened as the realization that another war could be on the horizon, and the development of the Hawker Fury – still a biplane, but with many advanced features – opened the door for even more advanced types, and to the monoplane Hurricane and Spitfire that began to equip the RAF in the late Thirties.