Dick Taylor is a recently-retired British Army Lieutenant Colonel who has been deployed in many areas of the world, including Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, South Sudan and lately, in Sierra Leone in the fight against Ebola. Joining the army as a junior soldier in 1976, he has served exclusively in the Royal Tank Regiment. Commissioned in 2000, he has specialized in tank gunnery instruction, Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear operations, Psychological Operations, and defense exporting. He has a First Class degree in History, a Master of Philosophy degree in Historical Research, and a Master of Arts degree in Political Science. He is married with two sons and lives in Blandford Forum, Dorset. Dick Taylor has authored, or co-authored, at least 16 books on armored fighting vehicles, primarily with Mushroom Model Publications.

When I was offered the opportunity to review this kit, I jumped at the chance. Growing up in the UK, the Wessex was a familiar sight at airshows and at Airports. The kit looks great and when you open the box the size and amount of detail is fantastic!

In the box is:

• 7 x light grey sprues
• 2 x clear sprues
• 2 x Photoetched details parts
• 1 printed paper set of seats and seat belts
• 1 decal sheet
• 1 instruction booklet
• A lot of resin parts!

All the sprues are extremely well molded with super fine details. The plastic is a little softer than I like. A big drawback is the sprues have no part numbers on them so you have to keep turn back to the front of the instruction manual to ensure you are getting the right part from the right sprue!

Italeri’s Infantry on Board kit is comprised of 10 of figures posed and equipped to assault the beaches on D-Day. In fact, this kit is comprised of a couple of the figure sprues from Italeri’s repackaged Landing Craft Vehicle Personnel (LCVP) kit #6524, which was released in 2014.

The kit includes 4 sprues of light grey styrene, with 2 of the sprues making up the figures, and the other 2 sprues making up the weapons and equipment. In actuality, the figure sprues are identical to each other, with the recommended poses being the only difference. The equipment sprues are identical too, with two sprues of the same equipment.