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
Jeff Leiby
Published on
November 13, 2016
Company
Master Model
Scale
1/700
MSRP
$6.95

The US Navy's New Mexico Class and Tennessee Class battleships mounted the 14in/50 rifles as main armament. The Trumpeter/Pit-Road 1/700 kit of the 1941 version of the USS Tennessee provides injected gun barrels both with and without blast bags. The injected barrels are molded in relatively soft grey plastic. Removal from the sprue results in a large attachment point remnant. Additionally, the barrel muzzles are molded solid and the small diameter, in 1/700 scale, makes them hard to drill.

Review Author
Gino Dykstra
Published on
November 13, 2016
Company
SBS Model
Scale
1/35
MSRP
$13.30

Recently Italeri released a model of the Italian Coloniale – a military version of a popular pre-war civilian vehicle, which proved to be quite versatile and was used extensively not only by the Italian army but by the German army as well, mostly hauling officers around in rear-echelon areas. The kit itself is comparatively simple, which reflects the relative simplicity of the vehicle itself. However, one area where this reductionism has caused a loss of detail is in the wheels, which are simple two-piece castings with very little detail beyond the hubs.

Review Author
Floyd S. Werner Jr.
Published on
November 12, 2020
Company
Eduard
Scale
1/48
MSRP
$8.50

The new Eduard Bf-109 is an exceptionally good kit and a lot of fun to build. What do you do if you have an Overtree boxing with no decals? Well you can get these decals to handle the stencils.

Eduard has started to print their own decals. One of the first ones they’ve done is the stencils for their Bf-109. Packaged in a self-sealing plastic wrapping with a thin cardboard backing, the decals are printed on a 2 ½ x 4 ¾ decal sheet. Also included is a sheet of instructions are included on a half of an A4 sheet. The finesse of the writing is legible in this scale. The colors are perfectly in register. The decals are very thin. So you will have to use plenty of water to move them around on the model once you add them, but they work flawlessly. Even if you don’t use setting solutions these decals will snuggle down beautifully.

Review Author
Floyd S. Werner Jr.
Published on
November 12, 2020
Company
Eduard
Scale
1/48
MSRP
$19.95

Ok so what do you do when you screw the pooch on the initial release of a model kit and you’ve already invested lots of money on decals? Well if you are Eduard then you simply offer them as a separate item to use on your new kit.

I built three of the initial Bf-109Gs from the 2014 release. The decals were the best thing about the release, despite size issues with kit, the decal were perfect. They were designed properly and even scaled perfectly for 1/48th scale.

Review Author
Floyd S. Werner Jr.
Published on
November 12, 2020
Company
Eduard
Scale
1/48
MSRP
$44.95

What do you do when your kit is too large but your decals aren’t? Well if you are Eduard you offer the decals for sale to go with you newly released Bf-109G. These decals were designed for the Royal Class release of the Eduard 2014 Bf-109G release.

Packaged in a resealable package with card stock support, this 8.5 x 13 inch sheet is printed by Cartograf. There is also a small stencil sheet printed by Eduard. That means that they are as perfect as decals can be. The colors are perfectly in register. The decals are very thin and quite colorful.

The sheet covers SIXTEEN aircraft covering every version from the G-2 to the G-14. It also covers German, Italian, Finnish, Hungarian, Rumanian, and Swiss and aces like Hartmann, Barkhorn, Baer, Trautloft, Schroer and Gabler. The colors range from Natural Metal finish to the standard 74/75/76 to Desert colors of 78/79 as well as the beautiful greens of JG-54.