Osprey Publishing’s latest monograph focuses on the waning years of the Habsburg Empire, and the Kaiserliche und Konigliche (k.u.k) Kriegsmarine's effort to protect its southern coast on the Adriatic Sea before and during WWI. Today, the coast and the cities along the coast, Trieste, Pola, and Fiume, among others, are parts of present day Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The book features fine illustrations of the 5 ship classes, 2 “in action” paintings, and many sharp black and white photos, sure to be of interest to ship modelers. The only weakness is the lack of a map of the 1914 Habsburg Empire's coast, and theater of operations during WWI.

The Wright R-1820 Cyclone 9-cylinder radial engine was developed in 1927 from an earlier engine dating back to 1925. The R-1820 entered production in 1931 and became one of the most widely used aircraft engines ever. Aircraft builders liked it because of its excellent fuel economy, durability, low cost maintenance, and low weight/horsepower ratio. Since its introduction the R-1820 has powered thousands of military and civilian aircraft both past and present. One of these aircraft is the North American T-28 Trojan.

Quickboost has released a new R-1820 recommended for use in the 1/48 Roden North American T-28D Trojan (Kit #450). This engine is molded in a medium gray resin. It is smooth, seamless and bubble free. Clean up is minimal. The cooling fins on each cylinder are very well defined and much more complete than those found on the kit engine. This is evident in the comparison picture below.

The Churchill tank had one of the largest production runs of any British WWII tank and was built in more variants than any vehicle except perhaps the Sherman. However, until very recently, it has been woefully under-serviced by the modeling manufacturers. The first kit was the old Airfix one from the 50's, which had many limitations. Then came the Aurora 1/48 one in the 60's which was almost toy-like. In the 70's came the 1/72/76 scale kits; the Hasagawa Mk I/II, ESCI Mk. III, Matchbox Mk IV bridge layer, and finally the 1/35 Tamiya Mk VII Crocodile. Since then, nothing has been released. However, Dragon has now released several small-scale models of this historic vehicle. The subject of this review is their kit of the Mk III version with the welded turret and 6 pdr. main gun.