The Stuka - one of the most notorious aircraft for World War II. Hasegawa gives us a kit of the R-2 version used in Libya during the North African campaign in mid-1941. The R version was an extended range B model that increased the planes range from 600km (372 miles) to 1530km (950miles) with the added fuel tanks on the wings.

There are 118 of light gray plastic and seven clear plastic parts on six sprues in this “Limited Edition” kit. We get a large decal sheet with markings for two aircraft used in North Africa. The instruction sheet is logically laid out on four sheets with two addition sheets being the black and white color / decal schemes. An interesting note is that on the box top and instruction sheet, the swastika is shown as a diamond on the tail, I guess they don’t want to offend anyone. I did have a few scratches on the clear parts, since they were not in a protective bag.

Concord Publishing, out of Hong Kong, is back again with another Armor At War series entitled Panzer Divisions In Battle 1936-45 by popular author Tom Cockle. Anyone familiar with the armor modeling literature and research will recognize this authoritative combination, and this latest release won’t disappoint.

Looking across my personal bookshelf of maybe 200 titles, I can spot several of Mr. Cockle’s books and I’ve familiar with many of his articles in some of the better armor magazines such as ‘Military Modeler’, ‘Military in Scale’, ‘Military Modelcraft International’, ‘FineScale Modeler’ and ‘AFV Modeller’. If you’ve been building armor models for any length of time, you’re probably familiar with his work as well.

Background

The sturdy French built SPAD VII c.1 made its appearance on the Western Front in mid-1916. Although many French pilots considered the SPAD VII to be inferior to the Nieuport 17 as a dogfighter, it nevertheless proved to be a reliable and rugged fighter and was more than a match for any Central powers aircraft it encountered. The real strength of this aircraft was its durability in a dive and that it could take a lot of punishment and still stay airborne. SPADs were soon in production in Great Britain, as well as in Russia. In the spring of 1917, Russia received 43 SPAD aircraft which proved to be popular with Russian pilots. This original batch of SPADs was supplemented by 100 more SPAD VIIs manufactured by the Dux factory under license.