Model builders of military vehicles and aircraft have come to rely on Kagero Publications for well-researched reference books. Their Topcolors series provides builders with a pairing of detailed color profiles of specific military vehicles or aircraft in a softcover book packaged with decals needed to reproduce the subjects covered within the publication. Topcolors 12 Eastern Front (Part 1) focuses on the camouflage and markings of (drum roll please…) forty-four different military vehicles that the Polish People’s Army used on the Eastern Front from 1943 to 1945. This 26-page all color book is presented in a larger (landscape) format than most previous Topcolors books and, because of the number of subjects that are covered, it comes with a clear sleeve containing two large-size decal sheets.

The Kit

This kit is pretty similar to my last review of the MiniArt buildings; most of the parts are the same injection molded plastics. However, the parts in this kit are molded in brick red, black, white, blaze orange, and gray. All parts are mostly free of flash, with the small exception of a minor piece of flash next to every one of the connecting blocks, which, if left untrimmed, will skew the walls during assembly. I approached this one with some trepidation, as it is much larger (233 parts). However, in the end it was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be.

I have always admired armored cars crews. I think their vehicles are fast enough to get themselves in trouble, but not armored enough to get themselves out of trouble.

The M8 started its life as a “tank destroyer” vehicle. Very quickly, it was realized that the 37mm cannon wasn’t enough to take out a tank, and the vehicle got re-assigned mainly to cavalry and reconnaissance units. The M20 is a spin-off of the M8, based on the same hull but with a different top and used, for the most part, as a command vehicle, fitted with different radios and a folding map board.