The December issue of Model Art starts off with a short article covering some of the new releases at the 2013 All Japan Plamodel Hobby Show. I will try to give some of the highlights of the releases that will be hitting our stashes soon.

For the aircraft builders, here is a few examples of what you should see soon. Hobby Boss 1/48 P-38L-5-LO due spring 2014, Trumpeter 1/48 T-38 release date TBA, Fine Molds 1/48 Fine Molds Mitsubishi Ka-14 (A5M prototype) due Dec. 2013, Tomytec 1/700 Launch Complex 39 pad A due Dec. 2013, 1/48 Kittyhawk Mig-25 due Oct. 2013, 1/32 Wingnut Wings Salmson 2-A2 release TBA, 1/48 Avant Garde Aero L-29 Delfin release TBA and the 1/48 Avant Garde CM.170 Fouga Magister.

Kit Review

This is the second review I’ve done of a MiniArt Building, and let’s just say they aren’t getting easier. That’s not to say they’re not great kits, but they are perhaps they lend themselves to the more experienced modeler. If you haven’t built or seen one of these, the kits consist of both Vacuform and injection molded parts. The major building pieces are vacuformed with the interior and exterior walls and roof sections molded as separate parts. No base is included/provided as in other MiniArt building/ruin kits. The detail on the kit is quite good, and this kit in particular comes with extra parts that don’t necessarily go on the shed, gutters, downspouts, louvered shutters for example. These can go right into the spares box for another time.

Review

Osprey Publishing keeps providing modelers and aviation aficionados with plenty of reading and reference material. The latest installment of their “Aircraft of the Aces” is devoted to those that flew with JG3. I have to say that I like a lot the most recent books of this series, in which they cover both the history and aces of a single unit.

JG 3 is a very relevant unit to both the modeler and historian, as it participated in all major Luftwaffe campaigns and some of the most significant battles of the war, including the Battle of Britain, Battle for Moscow, Stalingrad, Kursk, Normandy, Ardennes and Berlin. Not only that, it also flew all the marks of the Bf-109 (from the early –Es to the late –Ks), plus the Fw-190, both radial and inline versions. In addition to that their aircraft wore all different camouflages, from Western Front to Eastern Front (snow camouflage) to Desert and Mediterranean camouflages.