Welcome to the IPMS/USA Reviews site!

Introduction: The primary organization of the IPMS/USA Review website is by IPMS/USA National Contest Class. Within each Class there are sub-menus by kits, decals, books, etc. The Miscellaneous Class is for items that are not class specific or that cross two or more classes.

IPMS/USA Members: We encourage you to submit reviews, both here and to the Journal. To volunteer for membership in the IPMS/USA "Reviewers Corps" and submit your own reviews, please read the Guidelines For Submitting Product Reviews.

Manufacturers, publishers, and other industry members: IPMS/USA is pleased to offer your company the opportunity for product reviews. All product reviews are performed by IPMS/USA members, and are posted in the publicly-accessible section of our website. With very few exceptions, we perform full build reviews of new kit releases, aftermarket products, and supplies. If you would care to provide product samples for review, please contact John Noack, IPMS/USA 1st VP.

To learn more about IPMS/USA, please see our About Us page.

Review Author
Tom Moon
Published on
Company
Zvezda
Scale
1/72
MSRP
$19.95

This kit is listed as “My First Model Kit” and I wanted to get my grandson into modeling, so I thought this should be a good kit to introduce the hobby to my just turned 6 grandson. Well, things did not go as I had hoped. There are no age recommendations on the box, but most of the other kits on the shelf state 8 years old or older even for the snap tight kits. Now I know why. My grandson’s fine motor skills were not developed enough to handle a sprue cutter and his attention span was not long enough even to handle this kit (from start to finish no more than 2 hours). So I ended up finishing the model myself and getting him introduced to the painting and decal portion of the project. Below is listed what was done and how:

Review Author
Roger Rasor
Published on
Company
AFV Modeller
MSRP
$14.95

Many military vehicle modelers look forward to each issue of AFV Modeller showing up in their mailbox or on the local hobby shop’s rack. A look at the contents of issue 55 will quickly tell you why. In this issue, there are seven featured multi-page articles, forty-two product and publications reviews and a showcase of inspirational models entered in the 2011 Euro Militaire.

The first article in this issue documents Lars Richter’s build of the new Trumpeter 1/35 scale Russian T-62 Main Battle Tank kit. The eight-page feature covers everything from opening the box to adding the final weathering. In the end, Lars says the kit is highly recommended.

Book Author(s)
Thomas Newdick and Tom Cooper
Review Author
Scott Hollingshead
Published on
Company
Amber Books
MSRP
$34.95

In this new offering from Casemate Publishing, authors Thomas Newdick and Tom Cooper, provide the modern aviation enthusiast with two-hundred full color aircraft drawings and forty photographs of everything flown today by squadrons around the globe. In the one hundred and ninety-two informative pages, there are some fifty-thousand words of text providing information on not just the aircraft themselves, but also on the branch of service for the country using them. The book is logically divided up by regions for the chapters, and then by countries within the regions. The opening page for each chapter shows a color line-drawing map for the region with the counties being covered within shown, making the book educational for geography as well as for the aircraft.

The chapters, as mentioned, are broken into regions as follows:

Book Author(s)
Max Schep and Luuk Boerman
Review Author
Brian R. Baker
Published on
Company
Dutch Profile Publications
MSRP
$23.00

Introduction

Most aviation enthusiasts assume that the Curtiss P-40N, like General Douglas MacArthur’s “Old Soldier”, just faded away after the end of World War II. This was most certainly not the case as far as the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army Air Force was concerned. As the Japanese began leaving their former Dutch conquests in 1945, they left behind a motley collection of combat aircraft, some of which were appropriated and flown by the Indonesian insurgents, who were determined to get the Dutch out of their islands so they could become an independent country, in accordance with the postwar trend of ending European colonialism in that part of the world.

Book Author(s)
Brad Elward (Illustrated by Paul Wright)
Review Author
Scott Hollingshead
Published on
Company
Osprey Publishing
MSRP
$17.95

In this new offering from Osprey Publishing, author Brad Elward (and Illustrator Paul Wright) introduce the reader to the fascinating world of the Nimitz-class aircraft carriers of the United States Navy. Having served aboard the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69) and USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72), I quickly volunteered for this review when the book came out in a review list. As I possess a fair amount of knowledge on this subject myself, I am always looking to learn more about these magnificent ships, their history, and where the Navy plans to go in the future.