Tony Buttler was born in England in 1956 and completed his education at Prince Henry's Grammar School in Eyesham. He joined High Duty Alloys in Redditch in 1974 as a metallurgist and for nearly 20 years he was closely involved in the testing of aluminum and titanium airframe and engine components for many of the world's most important airplanes. It was during this timeframe that his interest in military aircraft grew into a passion. Tony left High Duty Alloys in 1993 Buttler and enrolled at Loughborough University, earning his Masters Degree in Archives and Library Studies. He subsequently became a freelance aviation historian specializing in the design and development of military aircraft. Since 1995, Tony has been a freelance aviation historian, with this book being his twenty-seventh major release. He has also written many titles for the Warpaint series of monographs as well as many articles for most of the popular historical aviation magazines.
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Fonthill Media’s Axis Suicide Squads – German and Japanese Secret Projects of the Second World War by Justo Miranda.
Author Justo Miranda has multiple books & publications out on Luftwaffe ‘paper-projects’ and late war designs. He is a tech drawer and Spanish Air Force Museum advisor.
This hardbound book is 224 pages and includes information on both actual aircraft used, and many “paper projects”.
The cover flap reads “This book details the designs of all German and Japanese aircraft, examining the suicide bombers and aerial rammers deployed as desperate measures to counter the Allied advance. Axis Suicide Squads is an in-depth history of the tragic necessity for such drastic countermeasures; it contains comprehensive technical information relating to each machine and detailed, hand-drawn diagrams depicting the mechanics of how the aircraft functioned.” This is a great summary of what this book is all about.
I have heard of Tru-Color Paints probably a year ago by now. They have an extensive line of railroad and car paints and they are continuously expanding their military line (aircraft, naval, armor). I’ve heard good things about them and I was interested to try them out. But honestly, the price was putting me off a bit. When I had the opportunity to review a few free samples, I jumped to it.
This review covers Tru-Paint TCP 1445 RAL 7021 Dunkelgrau, TCP-1446 RAL 7028 Dunkelgelb #1, TCP-1447 RAL 7028 Dunkelgelb #2, TCP-1448 RAL 7028 Dunkelgelb #3, TCP-1449 RAL 7028 Dunkelgelb #4 and TCP-1449 RAL 7008 Gray Green.
When I was younger my comics of choice were of the Military persuasion and one of my favorites was The Haunted Tank which initially featured an M3 Stuart blowing away Tigers with it’s 37mm. I didn’t realize the issue with that but I loved the stories and so started my love of the Stuart. As I got older I turned to more history books and read about the Honey used by the British in the desert and the US in Tunisia. When the new Tamiya kit showed up it just had to be built even though I haven’t built a 35th scale tank in, cough, 40ish years.
MENG revised its very good 2013 Leopard kit with new parts to build a Canadian C2 Mexas with the option to fit a dozer blade.
I jumped at the opportunity to review this kit for three reasons, firstly it’s a Canadian main battle tank, it’s by MENG and last by far from least is that a fellow Canadian military specialist Anthony Sewards assisted on the kits research. He also highly recommends this kit for its accuracy which is real praise!
In the box is: