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.

Review Author
Paul R. Brown
Published on
Company
Eduard
Scale
1/72
MSRP
$12.95

This decal sheet states that it was designed exclusively for use with Eduard’s outstanding 1/72 Fw 190A series of kits. The sheet provides seven different styles of Balkenkreuze, consisting of the simple white outline Balkenkreuze for the upper wings, and three options for both the fuselage and the underwing Balkenkreuze. There are the simple black Balkenkreuze outline, a solid black Balkenkreuze with a white border and the solid black Balkenkreuze with the white outline and a thin black outline outside of the white. This provides a lot of options to match the style Balkenkreuze used on the aircraft you are modeling.

As with all of Eduard’s new decals, these are very thin, but strong and react extremely well to Microsol and Microset, snuggling right down over details without silvering.

Book Author(s)
Neil R. Storey
Review Author
Frank Landrus
Published on
Company
Bloomsbury Publishing
MSRP
$14.00

Neil R. Storey attended North Walsham High School and completed is pre- and post-graduate work at the University of East Anglia. is a social and military historian focused on the impact of crime, war, and medicine on British society. He has been writing since the late 1980s and has pursued military, historical crime, and topographical topics. Author of nearly fifty books, including: Animals in the First World War (2014), The Women’s Land Army (2012), The Women’s Suffrage Movement (2012), The Battle of Britain (2012), The Victorian Criminal (2011), Women in the Second World War (2011), Women in the First World War (2010), The Home Guard (2010). Neil continues to write articles for national magazines and national journals in addition to providing lectures across the UK. He has served as a consultant for both radio and television.

Book Author(s)
Leroy Thompson; Illustrators: Adam Hook, Alan Gilliland
Review Author
Pablo Bauleo
Published on
Company
Osprey Publishing
MSRP
$20.00

Osprey Publishing continues to expand its weapon series, this time by adding a book on the exemplary Finnish-made Suomi KP/-31 submachine gun.

The book has a very reasonable breakdown of the following chapters: Introduction, development, use, impact, conclusion and bibliography, plus an index.

I’ve found particularly interesting the development, use and impact chapters. They were clearly really well researched and it included descriptions of the weapon characteristics, as well as the description of its use in combat by the Finnish ski troops against the Soviet troops. It should be noted that this submachine gun could also be used as a sniper gun, giving its high accuracy up to distances of several hundred meters.

Perhaps one of the best compliments to the overall design and performance is that this particular submachine gun was somewhat copied by the soviets and issued to their own troops in the later years of the war.

Book Author(s)
Robert Peczkowski
Review Author
Dick Montgomery
Published on
Company
Mushroom Model Publications - MMP Books
MSRP
$24.00

You can view the book trailer for this publication at this YouTube video. This video provides a preview of the entire book, cover to cover.

Written by Robert Peczkowski with color profiles by Artur Juszczak, this book covers the evolution of the Bf-109E from 1936 to 1941, from the E-0 to the E-9 in the “Emil” series. This is the second, expanded, and revised edition of an MMP book covering the Bf-109E.

Review Author
Paul R. Brown
Published on
Company
Quickboost
Scale
1/72
MSRP
$5.50

This is the second detailing set from Quickboost for the new Trumpeter Su-24 Fencer kits and focuses on the external antennas. The set includes replacements for 3 of the antennas in the kit and provides 5 others that are not in the kit. As the set is market simply for the Trumpeter Su-24, you may need to alter the antenna locations a little bit depending on whether you are building the Su-24MR or the Su-24M.

The antennas are sharply cast in Quickboost’s standard resin and the castings not only include the individual antennas, but also the mounting plate by which the antenna is attached to the aircraft. The antennas are easily separated from the cast block, either with a razor saw or even with sprue nippers. I removed the antennas one at a time, sanded down the mounting plate and then attached the antenna with superglue before moving on to the next antenna.