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Review Author
James Binder
Published on
Company
Special Hobby
Scale
1/72
MSRP
$47.99

Special Hobby has issued a new release in their line of B-18 Bolos. This one is the ASW edition with radar nose and “mad” boom on the tail. It is a great addition to the B-18 series and a unique addition to any ones collection of large twin engine aircraft in 1/72 scale

Overview

This kit is the fourth in the B-18 Bolo series and is one of the more unique variants of this obscure aircraft. The kit is typical of Special Hobby in that it is a mix of styrene, photo etch, and resin parts and should still be considered “short run” so dry fitting and some slightly more advanced modeling techniques will be needed.

Construction

Before starting I dipped all the clear parts for this build in “future” floor polish. As there are a lot of windows and clear parts now is the best time as they are used throughout the build.

Review Author
Clarence Wentzel
Published on
Company
Special Hobby
Scale
1/72
MSRP
$29.10

History

The Breguet 690 series resulted from a French Air Ministry competition for a heavy twin-engine fighter. Similar aircraft were being developed in Germany – the Messerschmidt Bf-110 and in Holland – the Fokker G.1. The Br.693 was the most successful of the 690 series designs. Powered by the Gnome-Rhone 14M engine, over 200 were produced and in service against German forces. These ground-attack fighters were loved by their crews but many were lost to anti-aircraft fire and Luftwaffe fighters during the furious battles in May and June 1940.

Armament of the Br.693 consisted of six internally stored 50 kg bombs, a 20-mm fixed forward firing cannon and four 7.5-mm machine guns. Three of the machine guns were fixed and one was on a flexible rear firing mount. The Br.693 was a good looking, reasonable performing twin engine ground attack fighter but it was outnumbered and overwhelmed by the Luftwaffe.

Review Author
Ron Verburg
Published on
Company
AFV Club
Scale
1/35
MSRP
$79.99

History

The CM-11 Brave Tiger (勇虎式戰車) is a Main Battle Tank (MBT) that was developed by the American General Dynamics and the Republic of China Army (ROCA) Armored Vehicle Development Center[1] It was introduced to the public on 14 April 1990. Being a variant of the M48 Patton, it is also known as the M48H Main Battle Tank. The CM-11 is a hybrid M60 chassis fitted with the turret from the older M48 Patton and the fire control system of the M1 Abrams.[2]

Review Author
Charles Landrum
Published on
Company
Tru-Color Paint
MSRP
$5.69

I am 57 and as I write this and like many I have mourned and am mourning the demise of hobby paints thanks to Rustoleum. I remember many good paint lines that have come and gone and many due to consolidation under Testors and later Rustoleum, Names like Model Master, Testors, Floquil, Polly S and Pactra to name some. I am more of an Enamel and Lacquer based paint user than acrylic; but have also done my fair of painting with acrylics. There are a lot of other paints available – Gunze Sanyo, Tamiya, AK Interactive, Mig, and Vallejo, but like most modelers I am a creature of habit and change is hard. So, as I have watched a multitude of railroad, naval and now military colors go away, and am faced with change. I jumped at an opportunity to try a new line of paint that has more bite than standard acrylics.

Review Author
Charles Landrum
Published on
Company
Hobby Fan Trading Co., Ltd.
Scale
1/350
MSRP
$24.99

In conjunction with their release of the U.S. LST-1 Class of ships, AFV Club has also release a box of 1/350 WWII military vehicles to populate the deck and well deck of the ship. Injection molded, the set includes two sprues, one the duplicate of the other allowing the modeler to build 7 different vehicles and 2 artillery pieces from each sprue for a total of 18 pieces in a box. Also included is a set of decals, which curiously does not match the number of vehicles. The instructions are isometric and printed on the box. There is no locating guide for the decals, just side view color drawings of the vehicles, so the modeler must rely on research for marking placement on the tops of the vehicles. Plus, the color call outs are poor. But aren’t all WWII vehicles olive drab?