The Cold War produced a number of unusual weapons systems, and few were more unusual than the M50 Ontos (a Greek word meaning “entity” or “thing”). In the aftermath of the Korean War, The M50 Ontos and its cousin, the M56 Scorpion, were developed to fulfill the role of Tank Destroyers, a service corps left to languish following the end of World War 2. Both the Army and the Marine Corps had been disappointed by their difficulty in stopping Russian made armor in Korea, and the prospect of thousands of Soviet tanks flooding across the plains of central Europe gave rise to the re-establishment of the dedicated tank destroyer concept.

“The 1916 Battle of the Somme Reconsidered” is a revision of a book written twenty four years ago by Peter Liddle, which benefits from more recently acquired research and information. It is a high quality, hard cover book. Peter Liddle is an historian of the First and Second World Wars, who has concentrated on personal experience of the men and women who took part in these conflicts.

The book was of great interest to me, as my grandfather fought in the “Great War”, and indeed was involved in trench fighting on the Somme. He was a very proper, jolly English gentleman, and held the rank of Sergeant. After the war, he emigrated to Australia. He had a fabulous life, and passed away at the age of 92.

Whenever an aircraft or helicopter is not moving on a US Navy flight deck, it is attached to the deck with tie down chains which are connected to several tie down points scattered across the flight deck. While the real tie down points are sturdy enough to restrain a fully loaded Tomcat or Phantom, in 1/72 scale they would be a real bear to make. Thankfully Brengun has come to the rescue with two new photo-etch sets depicting the two styles of tie down points used by the US Navy.

This set is the “cross” or “+” style of tie down point. These were used on the USS Midway and several of the helicopter assault ships such as the USS Belleau Wood LHA-3.