Osprey Publishing keeps expanding its Combat Aircraft series with its latest book, F9F Panther Units of the Korean War. I personally think that the F9F Panther is among the most beautiful jets of the early era—together with the F-86 Sabre—so I might be a bit biased on this topic.

Clearly, from the beginning of the book you realize the author, Warren Thompson, is extremely well versed in the Korean conflict, and he is a great researcher. The level of detail and accuracy in his narrative is outstanding. He is really good at combine first hand narratives and mission reports to allow the reader have a sense of the pilot experiences, as well as the overall combat record of each unit, and the strategic situation in the Korean Peninsula during the conflict.

This book, being from Osprey has plenty of pictures; about half of them in color. The book also has 24 gorgeous color profiles by Jim Laurier.

The book is divided in the following chapters:

Quickboost has come out with a direct replacement for the .50 Cal machine gun barrels on the HK Models 1/32^nd B 17 Flying Fortress kit. You get 12 barrels, all the same length and style cast in resin. The packaging is quite adequate. There was nothing broken or warped. The quality of the casting is superb and there is no flash or pinholes. I would assume that the barrels are the proper length. They are a little fatter then the kit ones and look good. Another nice feature is that they are drilled out on the ends.

A word of caution may be necessary, on the HK kit, the kits gun barrels come in various lengths and some have flash suppressors. The quickboost are all the same length and style. A nice feature about these barrels is that they are somewhat generic in nature. I believe they can be used on any Allied Airplane that is 1/32^nd and used .50 Cal machine guns.

Model Art Magazine is a monthly magazine that covers aircraft, armor, ships, and car modeling. Model Art started releasing magazines in 1966 and has evolved from there over the past forty-six years. They also release many special releases during the year as is the case of this issue.

This issue is the second in the series Ship Model Database Extra Edition. The first covered IJN Destroyers that were produced from 1918–1941, and this one covers the IJN Carriers 1922–1945. The carriers included in this are the Hosho, Akagi, Kaga, Ryujo, Soryu, Hiryu, Shokaku, Zuikaku, Taiho, Unryu, Amagi, Katsuragi, Shinano, Shoho, Zuiho, Ryuho, Chitose, Chiyoda, Hiyo, Junyo, Taiyo, Unyo, Chuyo, Kaiyo, and Shinyo. The magazine is broken down into eleven sections. I will cover each section below.