This set from Quickboost is designed to replace and improve upon the kit parts for Hobby Boss’s Mi-2 Hoplite. The kit air-intake cowling includes two holes through which you place the air intakes. It also has a molded-in intake in the upper center with a screen engraved in it. The Quickboost parts feature the cowling with two hollowed intake tubes cast in, along with an opening at the upper center. You get a photoetch screen to place over the opening, along with a spare screen. While a bit more fiddly than the kit parts, the level of detail is worth the slightly greater effort. Recommended.

My thanks go to Aires Hobby Models for producing and providing the parts for a rather esoteric subject and to IPMS/USA for allowing me to review them.

Background

As described on the Osprey Publishing website, “In 52 BC Caesar’s continued strategy of annihilation had engendered a spirit of desperation, which detonated into a revolt of Gallic tribes under the leadership of the charismatic young Arvernian noble Vercingetorix. Major engagements were fought at Noviodunum, Avaricum, and Gergovia, with the last action being the most serious reverse that Caesar faced in the whole of the Gallic War. However, Vercingetorix soon realized that he was unable to match the Romans in pitched battle. Taking advantage of the tribesmen’s superior knowledge of their home territory, Vercingetorix began a canny policy of small war and defensive maneuvers, which gravely hampered Caesar’s movements by cutting off his supplies. For Caesar it was to be a grim summertime – his whole Gallic enterprise faced disaster.

ATTENTION!!! Those of you with that huge box of plastic labeled “1/48 Testors or Italeri C-130 E/H in your stash, languishing in the dust because you’re bored with monotone gray, SEA or European One camouflage schemes. Here is your chance to buy a couple of extra bottles of liquid cement and get after it! This decal sheet offers up beautifully rendered markings for “Fat Albert” the USMC C-130T that provides support logistics transport, in addition to it’s own amazing solo performance featuring rocket assisted take-offs for the US Navy’s “Blue Angels” aircraft demonstration team.