The Big Macks book is part of Ampersand Publishing Company’s Visual History Series - single-subject reference books featuring a historical introduction followed by extensive black-and-white period and walk-around photographs. The book is by renowned military author David Doyle, has 112 pages with two pages of text, and the remaining pages are all photographs. There are no ads.

The two pages of text is the Introduction, which provides a brief history of development of the various Mack truck models from the early NO-1, 2, 3, which were all prime movers. The introduction also describes the next two models, NO-4 and NO-5, which were wreckers rather than prime movers. The NO-4 trucks were used by the Army Air Forces as aircraft wreckers, whereas the NO-5 was intended for field artillery use. The NO-6 trucks were intended for Allied use through the Lend-Lease program, and the NO-7 was the final model of the wartime prime movers.

A new release in Dragon’s Black series of modern armor the M48A3 Mod.B is a welcome option over the aged Tamiya M48A3 kit from decades ago. Hopefully the drawbacks and challenges of the old Tamiya M48A3 have been corrected with this new release.

Build Notes

Before starting, the Dragon kit has modest cast hull texture; so if a rougher cast texture is desired, glue the hull top & bottom together first adding parts A3, A4, D1 & D3. The mounting pad for D17 & D18 bumper will need to be built up to support the extended double bumper. You may also want to assemble the F13 & F20 Turret upper & lower along with F10, F11, & E1before adding casting texture. Proceed to add cast texture before starting Step 1.

Fine Molds has recently released two new-tool versions of the WWII Japanese Army Type 41 75mm Artillery. This boxing differ only slightly, and this review represents the slightly modified gun with a smaller shield and a crew of 4 figures in poses transporting (pulling) the weapon kit # FM39 Imperial Japanese Army Artillery Type 41 Mountain Gun “Infantry Regiment”. The smaller shield meant a lighter and more easily transported weapon – for the more mountainous terrain.

This is an all new effort by the folks at Fine Molds and is not the old tooling of the gun, which was done is white metal. The kit contains four total sprues molded in tan plastic: two for the gun, one containing the crew figures, and the final sprue contains the personal gear and weapons of the crew. There are also four strings which represent the tow lines, and a rather large decal sheet.