I was looking forward to building another Smart Kit, and I wasn’t disappointed when the RSO and PaK 38 arrived. These are wonderfully engineered kits and very realistic. Thirteen sprues and one chassis make up the 321 light grey plastic (3 are clear) parts which greet the lucky modeler upon opening the sturdy box, along with 29 photoetched parts and 144 smart tracks. 58 of those parts on one sprue will be used to build the PaK 38, 13 parts are not used, and one entire sprue is just for the optional Winterketten tracks stored on the RSO. The remaining parts are for the RSO, and you can build the wooden framed version or the metal framed one. The gun can be built in 3 ways: set up for firing, set up for towing on the RSO, or set up for hand towing and positioning using the optional 3rd wheel.

On the 70th anniversary of the Hawaiian Operation (as the Imperial Japanese Navy called it), Model Art Winter quarterly is all about Kido Butai, the Japanese fleet that attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Most of this issue is devoted to building detailed 1/700 models of the major Japanese warships (light cruisers and larger) and the submarines that attacked Pearl Harbor. Thus, this issue is strictly for IJN buffs.

Model Art quarterly issues are a larger format than their monthly issues. As usual, almost the entire text is in Japanese, but the pictures tell a thousand words. Page 1 has the usual four postcards of IJN warship paintings by Yukio Mizuno. Pages 3-7 are the Table of Contents and ads. Pages 8-15 are a new kit review of Hasegawa’s 1/350 Hikawa Maru liner.

The Japanese were among many nations during WWII to try and develop an amphibious tank. The Ka-Mi was the results of their efforts. My Japanese armor references are somewhat lacking, but the internet tells me that there were 184 of these floating tanks build during the war. Dragon has issued this great little kit in their 1/35 ’39-’45 series. Kit #6678 of the Imperial Japanese Navy Type 2 (Ka-Mi) Amphibious Tank Combat Version.

“Combat Version” means this kit does NOT come with the distinctive floats/pontoons that give the tank its unique look. Don’t let that put you off, as the kit itself is of exceptional quality, molded in the standard grey. The kit includes a great level of detail on all the parts, and comes with DS track, a small PE set, and a small sprue of clear parts. (Dragon has announced a release of the “full” kit with the pontoons which should be on store shelves soon.)