Background

Designed in the 1950/60’s with production beginning in 1967, the T-64 was more expensive and technically complex than the T-72 which entered production shortly after. It had a crew of three and featured an electro-hydraulic autoloader for the main gun that initially was 115 mm but later upgraded to 125 mm smoothbore to maintain fire superiority over the NATO tanks then being produced. The smaller crew allowed the tank to be designed with a lower profile and drop in overall weight by 6 tons, but increased the workload for the crew in everyday tank maintenance. The T-64 was constantly updated throughout its production run of 13,000 that ended in 1985. It was a basis and test bed for development of the T-80 tank. The T-64 would only be used by the Soviet army and never exported, and upon the breakup of the Soviet Union it would remain in the arsenals of constituent republics. The largest operator of T-64s outside of Russia currently is the Ukraine.

Model Art Modeling Magazine is a Japanese publication that is published monthly. The text is mainly in Japanese with some English subtitles throughout. One feature about these magazines is the high quality of the photographs and the models that are used.

In the December issue of Model Art, they start out with a modeler’s how-to guide. In this section they cover how to replicate wood on WWI aircraft, accenting panel lines (washes), and shading.

The next article covers the 2012 All Japan Plamodel Hobby Show. While there does not seem to be much coverage on built models, they do several pages of new releases. To modelers, it looks like 2013 will be another banner year for new kits in all genres.

Following that is a comparison review of six different Tony fighters in 1/72nd scale. They compare Fine Molds, Hasegawa and RS Models kits.

Eagle Editions has released a 1/32 scale sheet for the pending HK Models B-25 “Strafer” which represent the 345th Bomb Group, the Air Apaches. For those who don’t know, the Air Apaches were a Bomb Group based in New Guinea in WWII who flew the B-25J. They flew missions against shipping, ground emplacements, and flak positions using the B-25 bomber not only for its intended purpose but also for strafing almost anything. One thing they also had was very distinctively marked ships. The tails were marked with stylized Indians and the planes marked as bats, parrots, and many other things with great nose art. A modeler’s dream come true.

HK Models’ B-25J Strafer is reviewed here at http://web.ipmsusa3.org/content/b-25j-strafer . The kit is now arriving in the US and these decals give the builder three markings for this kit: