History / Background

The Soviet D-30 (122mm howitzer) entered service with the Russian Army in 1963 as a replacement for the M-30 and M-1942 artillery pieces. Nearly fifty years on, the D-30 is still in active service in over fifty armies today, including the Afghans under supervision of US forces. Unlike a conventional artillery piece that utilizes two trail legs the D-30 uses three, and when deployed, the trails are placed into a very stable configuration separated by 120 degrees. In travel mode, the D-30's rearmost legs fold forward alongside the forward leg, and the entire gun is pulled via the tow ring on the muzzle. With this build, I broke one of my cardinal rules for modeling: avoid equipment made after 1946. Why did I break this rule? For one, the gun has been in service as long as I have been around, and for some strange reason I am attracted to the unconventional three leg configuration.

A relatively new company on the modeling scene, Great Wall has released a handful of kits to date and, with reference to this review, they have two variants of the FW-189, an A1 and an A2, along with a third ski-equipped A1 version. Aires has stepped up to the plate and has released a resin wheel set (with paint mask) for the trio of kits. Typically, I buy a resin wheel set for a single reason and that is to obtain a set of weighted wheels for the kit I'm building. Many of you (and you know who you are) prefer the kit’s un-weighted round wheels, and that fine, too. In the case of the Great Wall kits, they ship with weighted wheels. What is a modeler to do? In this case, Aires is your answer. Unlike the kit parts, the resin set they provide is the round, non-weighted wheels. Problem solved.

Airfix has been busy lately coming out with newly tooled model kits, and the A-4B/4P Skyhawk continues that trend. The A-4 Skyhawk was a very successful light attack design by Douglas for the US Navy (and foreign buyers) and had a very long and effective career. There are many books that will go into great length on the development and history of this aircraft, so I will only deal with the build of this model kit. 73 parts are molded in a soft gray plastic (two more are clear parts), so be careful and don't sand to aggressively. Some have mentioned that the recessed panel lines are too deep, but what I found on my model was the fuselage lines got less deep towards the top and bottom of the fuselage and I had to rescribe these to match the rest of the fuselage, but it only took about 15 minutes to do so.