History

The Macchi M.5 was a flying-boat fighter developed by the Nieuport Macchi company of Varese in early 1917 and introduced in service in autumn 1917. Initially armed with a single Fiat machine-gun, and featuring a tail structure held on struts, the production M.5 had an armament of two Vickers guns and a tail structure resting on the fuselage. It was an extremely fast and maneuverable airplane, that managed to gain an ascendancy over the enemy seaplane fighters and even claimed victories against the Phönix land fighters.

In the introduction to one of David Doyle's latest offerings, he writes: The M551 Sheridan is often referred to as a light tank, but in actuality it was an armored reconnaissance/airborne assault vehicle. The M551 was designed to be a lightweight, amphibious, air-dropable vehicle armed with a massive 152 mm gun that doubled as a rocket launcher. The gun launcher was designed to fire the MGM-51 Shillelagh antitank missile, or 152 mm conventional rounds with a combustible cartridge case. The vehicles saw extensive use in Vietnam, Operation Just Cause in Panama (where they saw their only combat air drop), and Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. The Sheridan ended its service with the US Army masquerading as Soviet Bloc vehicles at the National Training Center.

This is another book in the Tank Craft series which details tanks and also covers model kits and accessories to build the tanks covered in the book. This book covers the Chieftain a British Cold War main battle tank. The Chieftain was designed in the late 1950’s as the replacement for the successful Centurion tank. It was believed to be the best tank in service with the NATO allies during the 1960’s and 70’s.

I found this book contains so much detailed information and pictures of the Chieftain and its variants. The Profile pictures are a particular favorite and has given me a few great ideas of the color schemes for when I build my Takom and Tamiya Kits.

It covers the use of the tank during the Iran- Iraq war and the Gulf war.

The chapters on the different model builds and kits are of great interest and will provide a good resource when modelling this tank.