The Hobby Boss 1/48 A-10 kit can make up into an impressive kit right out of the box. As with another production kits however, it has some areas that need detail upgrades to represent the aircraft in scale. One of those areas in this kit are the engine exhausts. The Hobby Boss parts C8 & C9 make up the turbine section of the engine. There is no internal detail so you end up with a black hole inside the exhaust.

Luckily, Phase Hangar has developed a solution. This detail set includes one piece -3D printed exhaust cones with amazing surface detail inside and outside. Two other parts create the internal turbine details one would see if looking into the exhaust of the real thing. Phase Hangar provides detailed instructions online that take the builder through the steps to incorporate this set into the kit parts.

A focal point of any A-10 build is all of the ordinance hanging from eleven hardpoints across its wingspan. While the Hobby Boss A-10 has a lot of strong points, the kit provided weapon pylons are not one of them. The surface details consist of dimpled rivets and some raised boxy panels. Phase Hangar corrects that for us with this set of replacement pylons with separate bomb rack inserts. Each pylon includes a raised station reference on the casting block that corresponds to the weapon station diagram in the kit instructions. As with the other parts Phase Hangar produces for the Hobby Boss kit, these have fine surface details. There are no instructions on the Phase Hangar site for this but you don’t need them. Identify the weapons station, remove the casting block and drop into the recess on the kit wing. After minor cleanup to remove the casting sprue, the bomb rack parts drop into recesses under the pylon and include sway braces.

There are certain things that seem to define some nation’s armor in WW2. The Soviets had their political slogans painted on vehicles, and the Americans had lots of personal equipment stacked and hung on the vehicle. If you are modeling the US Army in WW2, you have wall-to-wall Olive Drab in your display case. Value Gear provides the modeler with a wide selection of low-cost stowage to break-up that OD.

Value Gear from the USA specializes in stowage sets for military vehicles. Many are generic tarps and boxes that will work for any county and almost any period. Others are specific to an Army, era, or vehicle. In this review, I will be covering three sets for USA vehicles in WW2