Background

Originally designated as the F-95, the North American F-86D “Sabre Dog” was the initial all-weather and night capable extension of the superb F-86 day fighter. Only 25% common to the day-version F-86’s the “Dog” sported a larger fuselage, engine, and tail surfaces, with a distinctive radome to house an advanced air intercept radar. The D-model also traded its guns for 2.75-inch folding fin aerial rockets, which were mounted in a retractable launcher in the nose of the aircraft. First prototyped in 1949, over 2500 F-86D’s were produced, serving in the air arms of no fewer than 17 nations.

Thanks to Piotr at Master-models for providing these metal gun barrels to improve our Hellcats, and thanks to our IPMS leaders for sending these my way!

The Eduard Hellcats have been around for a while now, and are great kits in their own right. Master details provide late-model covered .50 caliber Browning barrels to replace the kit items; these directly replace the kit plastic parts…

In side-by-side comparison, Master Model’s gun barrels provide improvement on the kit items by providing depth and three-dimensional appearance over the kit parts, and improve the appearance by having finer detail than can be provided with injection molding processes. These are exactly the same as the version with the cooling jackets having holes drilled in them, without a separate barrel assembly for the guns. They are just machined tubes, with fine detail… See the middle gun barrel on this wing for an example.

Osprey Publishing’s latest Men-at-Arms monograph focuses on the fighting men, weapons and equipment used during the war between the Greeks and Turks, in the aftermath of World War I. This from the website: "This is a comprehensive guide to the armies that fought a devastating and decisive conflict in the Eastern Mediterranean between the two World Wars of the 20th century. From the initial Greek invasion, designed to "liberate" the 100,000 ethnic Greeks that lived in Western Turkey and had done for centuries, to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's incredibly efficient formation of a national government and a regular army, this was a war that shaped the geopolitical landscape of the Mediterranean to this day. It gave birth to the modern Turkish state, displacing millions and creating bitter memories of atrocities committed by both sides.