Left front low

Sepecat Jaguar Gr.1/Gr.3

Finished

Christie T3E2 (E3) Tank

Finished Model - Bofors Gun Closeup - One of Eight, Each Made of Two Injection Parts and Four PE Parts

HMS Roberts

Finished Aircraft

SPAD VII c.1(w/Skis)

In the light 2

Seaview 8-window Movie Version

Float wire replacment

OS2U Kingfisher Build

Figure Sprue

US Navy Missile Cart with 5 Weapon Officers

Rear View of USN Sea King

SH-3 A/D Sea King

Painted & Decaled Bottom

L-29 Delfin Weekend Edition

Cockpit Detail. Left

P-39L/N US WWII Fighter

Previous Next

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.

Front Cover

Topdrawings #118 Nakajima B6N Tenzan
Book Author(s)
Dariusz Karnas & Artur Juszczak
Review Author
Hub Plott
Published on
Company
Kagero Publishing
MSRP
$24.95

This is volume 118 in the Topdrawing series. This is a thin book with brief text in both English and Polish. The book contains very nice 1/72, 1/48 and 1/32 scale drawings. There are also ten color profiles of various B6Ns.

The drawings contain useful information on the various ordinance carried and its layout as well as engine and propeller information.

This is the first of this series I have had the pleasure to look through. It is a nice inexpensive book showing details, drawings, and painting information. It is a suitable alternative to the more expensive and harder to find Aero Details series and provides the modeler with sufficient information to build a nice, detailed model. It will give you the basics you need on the aircraft covered without going into the minute details of more lengthy volumes. I can recommend it to anyone building a model of this aircraft and to those that just want the nitty gritty information.

Front Cover

The Marmo Method Model Building Guide # 14 - Building the 1/96 Scale Atlantis Moon Ship
Book Author(s)
Richard Marmo
Review Author
Tom Pope
Published on
Company
Scale Publications
MSRP
$3.99

Richard Marmo’s latest installment in his “The Marmo Method Model Building Guide” series is booklet # 14, Building The 1/96 Scale Atlantis Moon Ship. These booklets are a great reference for scale modelers of any experience level. I would like to thank Mr. Marmo and Scale Publications for providing a copy for this review.

Revell released the XSL-01, 3-stage rocket kit in 1957 and later in the same year, released just the 3rd stage, the Moon Ship as a stand-alone kit. Both were highly successful kits of the day. In 2021, Atlantis re-released the Moon Ship under their brand but it’s the same tooling and kit as the 1957 version.

In October of 2021, Mr. Marmo published this booklet to describe the materials, tools and techniques he used as he went through the processes of building, finishing and displaying the Atlantis kit.

Front Cover

Tiger Ausf.E – Visual Modelers Guide (Multilingual)
Book Author(s)
Enrique Calderón
Review Author
James Kelley
Published on
Company
AMMO by Mig Jimenez
MSRP
$15.70

Steel Series Volume 4. A work entirely devoted to the iconic Sd.Kfz. 181 Tiger Ausf. E. Fun and easily referenced sourcebook where you can visually analyze and distinguish the main versions of the Tiger I, from the initial models to the final production variants. The introduction includes some historical notes about the design and development process of the vehicle. All of this with high-quality photographs that clearly show often overlooked external details features critical to both the King Tiger and scale modelers.

  • Complete color guide with information about both the interior and exterior colors used.
  • 16 fully detailed color profiles with camouflage and markings for all the versions.
  • 80 pages, with more than 160 high-quality photographs including rarely seen details.

The book is broken into several sections:

Cover

We Were Never There, Volume 1: CIA U-2 Operations over Europe, the USSR and the Middle East, 1956-1960
Book Author(s)
Kevin Wright
Review Author
Chris Smith
Published on
Company
Helion & Company
MSRP
$24.95

On May 1, 1960, an ex-USAF turned CIA pilot named Francis Gary Powers flying a Lockheed U-2 at 70,000 feet 800 miles east of Moscow felt and saw the results of a Soviet SA-2 missile removing the tail of his aircraft. Thus ended the first round of U-2 overflights over the Soviet Union and the time frame covered in this volume. Despite the international incident that resulted, the information gained about the state of Soviet bomber and nuclear weapon capabilities more than justified the risks taken. The author, Kevin Wright is a university professor specializing in the Cold War. This book outlines the first phase of U-2 operations from 1956 to 1960. The book opens with a brief history of how the U-2 came to be and examines the various equipment packages that the aircraft could carry. Contrary to the public perception of the U-2 only being a camera platform, it carried nuclear fallout sampling equipment as well as receivers for the collecting electronic intelligence.

Cover

The Messerschmitt Bf-110
Book Author(s)
Richard A. Franks
Review Author
Frank Landrus
Published on
Company
Valiant Wings Publishing
MSRP
$31.94

Valiant Wings Publishing was founded in 2010 under the guidance of Richard A. Franks and Mark Peacock. Valiant Wings has released several series of primarily airplane monographs [Airframe & Miniature, Airframe Album and Airframe Detail series] with the first Airframe Album dedicated to the Heinkel He 219 ‘Uhu’ released in 2012.