Towards the end of World War 2 some of the most vicious tank battles were being fought on the Eastern Front as Russian forces pushed their way into the back door of the Third Reich. Although not on the scale of the Kursk campaign earlier in the war, these slugfests involved some of the heaviest, most sophisticated armored units the world had seen up to that point, and most engagements were hammered out between the opposing forces with no quarter given or taken. The atrocities that these two countries had inflicted on each other during the previous five years ensured that.

My father was a professor of history, and he wrote a number of books relying on primary sources. Igor Nebolsin’s book on the subject of these brutal encounters likewise draws on a plethora of first-hand information, from battle reports to statistical data from both sides, to first-hand reminiscences of combatants. Ultimately, this becomes a virtual day-to-day study of this period in history.

This book is a comprehensive work covering the range of modern small arms used in today’s world armed forces.

The chapters cover the main weapons in use as follows

• Chapter One - Combat Pistols
• Chapter Two - Sub Machine Guns and Personal Defense Weapons
• Chapter Three - Assault Rifles and Carbines
• Chapter Four - Battle and Designated Marksman Rifles
• Chapter Five - Combat Shotguns
• Chapter Six - Sniper and Anti-Materiel Rifles
• Chapter Seven - Light Machine Gun, Light Support Weapons and Squad Automatic Weapons
• Chapter Eight - Support Weapons

Each chapter goes in to great details of each weapons in the category and provides a lot of reference work for anyone interested in modern weapons. It is also a treasure trove of information and photos for modelers of modern troops and weapons.

The 9K330 Tor is the newest vehicle in the Russian arsenal for self contained anti-air missile defense system. The missile system is the SA-15 Gauntlet and it is mounted in the 9K330 Tor tracked chassis. The vehicle has an integrated rotating search radar, a tracking radar in the front of the turret, antennas for guidance and 6 vertically stored missiles in the center of the turret. Interestingly, these missiles are stored internally and are launched similar to US naval vessels. In 2016, Panda Hobby released the original version of this kit and it remains the only styrene kit of this subject. This new release from 2019 adds replacement white metal tracks to the kit.