What’s Inside

This is my first exposure to this series of photo reference guides and I kind of like the format. There is a brief one page Introduction and explanation of the format- and a reasoning of why this particular volume- which ties in to Tamiya’s recent release of the P-38 F/G. From there we get right to the meat of the guide- the many photos.

Mr. Marmo gives a brief explanation of how to navigate the photo thumbnails and then you’re set free. When you click on a thumbnail, you are brought to a whole page version of it, complete with a caption explaining what you’re seeing and a credit reference for where the photo originated from.

Bottom Line Up Front

Tamiya breaks new ground with the first large production injection T-55 in 1/48 scale. Tamiya already has an impressive line of excellent 1/48 scale armor kits and this will likely prove to be one of their most popular offerings. This kit delivers everything we have come to expect from Tamiya; excellent detail, brilliant engineering and interesting subjects.

History

From the mid-1950s, the T-55 was the main tank of the Soviet Army, armies of the Warsaw Pact countries, and many others. T-55s have been involved in many of the world's armed conflicts since the later part of the 20th century. The T-55's first appearance in the West around the period of the 1950s (then the beginning of the Cold War) spurred the United Kingdom to develop a new tank gun, the Royal Ordnance L7, and the United States to develop the M60 Patton. The T-55 series remain in use by up to 50 other armies worldwide, some having received sophisticated retrofitting.

Introduction

On 1 April 1942, less than four months after the world had been stunned by the attack upon Pearl Harbor, sixteen US aircraft took to the skies to exact retribution. Their objective was not merely to attack Japan, but to bomb its capital. The raid was more successful in its moral impact on shaking the Japanese sense of invulnerability than in its physical damage to the targets. The Doolittle Raid tells the story of the preparations for the raid, descriptions of each of the 16 crews and their outcome, and the aftermath of the raid.