Thank you to Osprey Publishing for providing a review copy of their new release, USS Lawrence vs. HMS Detroit, The War of 1812 on the Great Lakes, number 79 in the Duel Series. As always, I appreciate all those in the IPMS Reviewer Corps, whose work is critical to sharing new and exciting modeling products with the world.

The Kits

The molds for these kits were originally produced by Impact in the early 60s as part of a series of British fighters that included the Bristol Bulldog, Fairey Flycatcher, Hawker Fury and the Gloster Gladiator. The molds have changed hands from Impact through Lifelike, Pyro and Lindberg and now are the property of Lindberg/Round 2. This double kit is a reissue by Lindberg Round 2 with improved instructions, one additional decal option per plane and two 36" lengths of rigging wire (not included in any of the previous issues).

Included in the box are:

Guns and pitot probes on most plastic model aircraft leave a lot to be desired. There is often a mold seam down the center of the guns or pitot probe. Another set of problems are that the same parts, once cleaned up, are usually oval shaped in diameter, and the guns do not have that proper hollowed look of a real gun barrel. In some scales, such as 1/72, it would be difficult if not impossible to drill out these plastic gun barrels and pitot tubes.

Master Model has solved this problem with an aftermarket kit for the A-1 Skyraider. This kit consists of thirteen metal parts which will allow for two different gun barrel configurations, and a pitot probe to replace the kit’s pitot probe. Each gun barrel is realistically hollow on the inside, with the thickness of the barrel in scale with the model. Master Model’s parts are not unique to a specific A-1 kit, but are compatible with any 1/72 scale A-1 Skyraider kit, no matter which variant it is.