If you enjoy building armor, you must get this kit.

Upon opening the box, one finds 15 sprues comprising 501 plastic parts, 1 photo-etched sheet, 216 individual track links (you will need 202 for the main tracks), and decals for four versions covering vehicles used in both the North African and Italian campaigns. There are 29 parts not included in the instructions, and several for options that are either/or. Molding is very fine with no flash that I could find. The instructions are in booklet form, with a parts sprue layout which you will need during construction. Ejector pin marks are not a problem with this kit. At several points during assembly, the plans call for adding bolt heads which can be found on several of the sprues and which will need careful lifting off – but there are plenty of extras for your next project.

The Grumman Tigercat was the epitome of WWII US-designed, twin-engined fighters, and was an exceedingly heavily armed aircraft for its size, either for the fighter or strike role. As a night fighter, it shared similar attributes with its Air Force cousin, the P-61 Black Widow, not the least of which was a reduction of its built-in armament as it evolved. As with the Widow, the Tigercat eventually dispensed with its four original 50 caliber machine guns, keeping its remaining four 20mm cannon (necessitated by the installation of its nose-mounted radar, thus displacing the nose-mounted 50s). The 20mm barrels are represented by these Quickboost replacements.

When you look at any of Master Model’s brass gun barrels, you always marvel at what you see. The detail is remarkable regardless of the scale, and the price is hard to believe because it is so low. One of the things that always bothersed me in German WWI aircraft, almost as much as rigging, was annealing and rolling that stupid cooling jacket on Spandau machine guns. And when I finally get it rolled, I had to join it somehow. Soldering is supposed to be how you do it, but I have yet to be successful. So, I ended up with a very soft brass roll that was barely held together on the bottom by superglue. It was guaranteed, at some time during the build, to get dented or just plain squashed. Master Model comes to the rescue with one-piece, turned and perforated cooling jackets and exquisite muzzle and flash suppressor, plus a gun barrel that cannot be duplicated by stretched sprue or brass rod or plastic rod.