Well, here it is September already, and our busy beaver fellow IPMSer Ross McMillan follows through with 6 new releases, including one for the all-new Tamiya 1/32nd P-51D Mustang.
As always, crisply cast with only minimal flash and very little cleanup required. Many thanks for the review samples! Keep up the great work.
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.
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The Contents
You get a heavy duty envelope with 4 plastic sleeves inside. You get:
- 73355 PE, one self-adhesive mostly cockpit, and two really big PE frets for interior and exterior detail
- CX257 Canopy and Wheel mask
- 73008 Remove Before Flight Tags
You also get 2 full pages of instructions, folded so that you have 8 separate half pages of instructions, plus a half page instruction for the masks.
The Aircraft
The F/A-18 Hornet has been around for a while, and it looks to be almost as big a winner as its predecessor, the F-4 Phantom. One of the stories going around St. Louis in the 90s was that the plant wanted to build 5058 Hornets, one more than the production run for the Phantom. Well, the production line is still open, and they’re past 1100 now.
The Jagdpanzer IV was a tank destroyer based on the Panzer IV chassis and built in three main variants. As one of the casemate-style turretlessJagdpanzer (hunting tank) designs, it was developed against the wishes of Heinz Guderian, the inspector general of the Panzertruppen, as a replacement for the Sturmgeschütz III (StuG III). Guderian objected to the needless, in his eyes, diversion of resources from Panzer IV tank production, as the Stug III and Sturmgeschütz IV were still more than adequate for their role. After the Battle of Stalingrad in September 1942, the Wehrmacht arms bureau, the Waffenamt, called for a new standard for assault weapons: 100mm of armor to the front, 40–50mm on the sides, wider tracks, ground clearance of 50cm, top speed of 26 km/h, and the lowest possible firing positions. The new Panzerjager (tank hunter) design would be armed with the same 7.5cm gun as fitted to the Panther: the Pak 42 L/70.
One of the newer series of Osprey Publishing is the “Duel” series. As the name suggests, it provides an in-depth look at two pieces of equipment and compares and contrasts their capabilities in the context of a particular battle. To date, there are forty separate titles. Many of these concentrate on armor. Osprey has packaged five of these titles into one book:
Osprey’s series “Duel” is adding another title - King Tiger vs. IS-2. As with previous publications, the book focuses on the design, development, and capabilities of these two well-known vehicles that debuted in the last eighteen months of the war in Europe. While the book does not offer much in terms of reference material for building the penultimate King Tiger or IS-2, it provides the necessary context for understanding the origins and development of these vehicles and how they performed on the field of battle.