History

The Messerschmitt Me-262 is probably one of the most popular modeling subjects because of its historic importance and the incredible tactical misuse of this aircraft during the closing stages of the war. While conceived as an air superiority fighter, Hitler decided that the plane would be most useful as a high speed bomber. It wasn’t until the late stages of the war that the aircraft was finally employed in its proper role at a time when there was no chance of it having any serious impact on the outcome of the war. Volume I covered the technical development of the aircraft, which involved the design problems and flight testing of the various prototypes.

Fans of the Imperial Japanese Navy have something new to put on their wish lists – a new, beautifully illustrated reference book! Kagero, based in Lublin, Poland, has published a new addition to their illustrated 3D series of historic warships. They have previously published 3D books on the Heavy Cruisers Takao and Aoba.

Using computerized graphics, the authors have created detailed 3-D illustrations of the Tone’s exterior from stem to stern from nearly every possible angle, in what appears to be her appearance after her last refit in the summer of 1944. It also comes with a bonus foldout that provides a profile of the ship rendered in black and white and some additional illustrations.

Kagero has published a series known as “Mini-Topcolors” oriented toward modelers. Each book includes color profiles and decals in several scales.

“Barbarossa 1941,” the 25th title in the series, concentrates on armor involved in the invasion of Russia. As such, most of the profiles are of German tanks, but there are a couple of T-34/76 and a KV-2. There are a total of 18 color profiles in the book.

A very neat detail is that, accompanying most of the profiles, there is a black and white picture which was used by the artist to create the profiles. Each profile also includes a small paragraph in English and Polish describing some details on the specific location or time that the reference picture was taken.