Wheel cover options

Chrysler 300

Decal 1

Sd. Kfz, 251-8 Ambulance

Cockpit

Ford 3 Litre GT Starter Set

RH Nose

USAF B-52H 20th BS "Buccaneers"

Bottom

Where Are the Damned Roads?

Front view

'78 GMC Big Game Country Pickup

Assembly

P-51H

Cockpit

Messerschmitt Bf109E Sept. 1940

Hasegawa OKA-11 Const. 1500

Japanese Yokosuka MXY7-K1 Trainer

Instrument Panel View

Hurricane Mk.IIC

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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.

Packaging

Metal Landing Gear for Academy 1/72 F-15E

Review Author
Rod Lees
Published on
Company
Scale Aircraft Conversions
Scale
1/72
MSRP
$13.95

We at IPMS continue to thank Ross and his Team at SAC for supporting the IPMS USA reviewer corps with what has turned into a monthly release schedule with extremely useful and well-thought out landing gear additions for the modeling crowd out here in the modeling world. What started out as an “I don’t know if they will sell” idea a few years ago has flourished into a busy worldwide trade for modelers seeking just a bit more out of their model accessories…

This review is for the SAC landing gear released for the relatively new 1/72 F-15E from Academy. This kit is a jewel; there are two areas needing true replacements for a contest level model, that being the “featherless” open afterburner nozzles, which are supplied simplified, and the rather thick one-piece canopy over the extremely well-detailed cockpit. Those issues are for others to address… SAC provided us three metal parts to replace the kit-supplied plastic gear.

Box art

U.S. M113A1 ACAV
Review Author
Andrew Birkbeck
Published on
Company
AFV Club
Scale
1/35
MSRP
$79.99

Background

As a young man in the late 1960’s living in Canada, each weekday night I used to watch “The CBS Evening News” with Walter Cronkite. This was my window on the world, so to speak. And it seemed that almost every night the first thing that I saw through this window involved “the war in Vietnam”. Mr. Cronkite would tell me how many US troops had been killed or wounded, and then I would see a video clip from a correspondent in Saigon, or in some rice paddy somewhere in the countryside. Vietnam, I thought, was a place I didn’t EVER want to visit. Often in the background of the television videos, there were TWO objects regularly seemed to appear at some point during the newscast. One was a helicopter, often many, and the other was an M113 APC. These apparently, were the chariots that the Americans rode into battle, be it on the ground, or in the air.

Box art

USAF B-47 "306th BW(M)"
Review Author
Jim Pearsall
Published on
Company
Academy Models
Scale
1/144
MSRP
$27.00

History

The B-47 was the first swept-wing jet bomber in the US Air Force’s inventory, serving the USAF from 1951 to 1969. The US Navy flew some EB-47Es until 1977. Development began in 1943, and the design changed several times until Boeing came up with a 6-jet aircraft with the engines in pods under the wings. Because of the size of the engine pods, the main landing gear was set up as a “bicycle”, with 2 main gear under the fuselage, and smaller outriggers under the engine pods. With this setup, the B-47 could not rotate the nose on takeoff. The main gear was set so the aircraft sat at optimum takeoff angle at all times. The B-47 was subsonic, but extremely fast for a 1950s, setting a number of time and distance records, with speeds around 600 miles per hour.

Book cover

Sturmgeschutz
Book Author(s)
Thomas Anderson
Review Author
Andrew Birkbeck
Published on
Company
Osprey Publishing
MSRP
$45.00

Initially deployed with German forces in 1940, Sturmgeschütz (Stug) assault guns were purpose-built fully tracked armored fighting vehicles designed to support the infantry during the initial assault on enemy positions, especially useful for knocking out strong points such as bunkers. When the Germans invaded Russia in 1941 in Operation Barbarossa, they got a nasty surprise with the appearance on the battle field of heavily armed and armored Soviet tanks such as the T-34/76 and KV-1. The Stug assault guns were discovered to be excellent tank destroyers. They were quicker and cheaper to produce than tanks, making them a good “bargain” on the battlefield. As the war progressed, the Stug was up-gunned to deal with ever more lethal Soviet tanks, and spread across the battle fields as German industry struggled to keep up with tank losses.

Cover

Legends of Warfare Aviation: Grumman F4F Wildcat
Book Author(s)
David Doyle
Review Author
Hub Plott
Published on
Company
David Doyle Books
MSRP
$19.00

This is a new series for me at least. This is a nice hardback book that covers the Grumman F4F Wildcat and the FM series of Wildcats built by Eastern Aircraft Division of General Motors during WWII. The Wildcat continued in production and to fight throughout the war even as newer and better aircraft became available.

The book has 12 chapters each covering the different variants. The layout is the first chapter on the XF4F-2, followed by chapters each on the following: XF4f-3 and F4F-3, the F4F-3 in detail, XF4F-5, XF4F-6/F4F-3A, F4F-3S, XF4F-4, F4F-4, F4F-7, XF4F-8, FM-1, FM-2 and Wildcat in combat.