This is a diorama set which observes the 25^th anniversary of the Gulf War. The kit comes with 4 1/72 models; The US AH-1 Cobra, the US M-1A1 Abrams, the Iraqi Mi-25 and an Iraqi T-62.

Because there are 4 models in the set, and we have time limits, the helicopters are built by Mike Hinderliter, and the armor by Jim Pearsall. The review will appear in 4 parts, as each of the 4 kits is finished.

The T-62

The T-62 is a Main Battle Tank, developed from the T-55. The big improvements of the T-62 were a smoothbore main gun which could fire high velocity armor piercing rounds. Iraq had T-62s in the 1980 Iran-Iraq war, and they were successful against M-60s and Chieftains. But advancements in Coalition equipment, particularly the US M1A1 Abrams put the T-62 at a disadvantage in the 1991-92 Gulf War.

Eduard continues to expand its series pre-painted seatbelts in the “steel” series. I think that Eduard Models call this product line “Steelbelts”.

When working with this new line of seatbelts (steelbelts) the main thing that jumps is how thin they are. Reading in the Info Eduard (June 2016 issue) they say they are 0.04 mm thick. I should probably say they are 0.04 mm thin. They are pre-painted and also have some shading (weathering) on them.

You apply them like any other metal aftermarket piece, using a dab of superglue. That is all that takes to use the steel seatbelts. About 1 minute per seat and it is very easy to do (if you have experience with small parts).

Aires Resin has produced a set of replacement horizontal and vertical stabilizer parts for the Eduard 1/72 scale Fw-190A kits. The resin surfaces are a superbly detailed drop-in for the kit’s plastic parts. The supplied items include a firm greenish-grey resin casting block with the horizontal stabilizers attached. A side by side evaluation (see photos) indicates identical replacements that will provide poseable control surfaces for this exquisitely nice little kit from Eduard. As always, check your reference photos.

You won’t need to do any surgery to the kit to use these beautifully cast pieces in your build. The moveable surfaces could do with a quick swipe and wipe of Tamiya surfacer, and then ultra-fine sandpaper to tone down the prominence of the rib detailing and provide a more realistic fabric surface.