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Review Author
Mike Hinderliter
Published on
December 19, 2011
Company
Quickboost
Scale
1/72
MSRP
$11.95

Quickboost just keeps adding to their growing line of quality resin aircraft accessories. This time they have put out a nice set of propellers for the Academy B-24 Liberator. They are molded in grayish resin, smooth, seamless and bubble-free.

The propellers that come in the Academy kit are okay but lack the level of detail that the Quickboost propellers have. The Quickboost ones are just more believable when you look at the finished kit. When you compare them, the Quickboost hub detail is superior and the tool that they include ensures that you have the right pitch. Installing them is also no problem and they could go on almost any other B-24 kit.

I highly recommend this product if you want a really superior-looking model. Thanks to Quickboost and IPMS USA for the chance to do this review.

Review Author
Marc K. Blackburn
Published on
December 19, 2011
Company
Trumpeter
Scale
1/35
MSRP
$43.99

Short History

From the side of the box, Trumpeter provides the following history of the BTR: “The Russian BTR-50 is a Soviet amphibious armoured personnel carrier based on the PT-76 amphibious light tank chassis. The BTR-50 was tracked, unlike most members of the BTR series, which were wheeled. Like the PT-76, the BTR-50 has a flat, boat-shaped hull. Unlike the PT-76 it has a new superstructure added to the front of the vehicle. The engine used in the BTR-50 is the V-6 6-cylinder water-cooled diesel engine developing 240 hp (179 kW) at 1800 rpm gives it a road speed of 44 km/h with a cruising range of 400 km. BTR-50PK is armed with a pintle-mounted 7.62 mm SGMB machine gun. This variant has an NBC production system.”

What’s in the box?

Review Author
Mike Hinderliter
Published on
December 19, 2011
Company
Quickboost
Scale
1/72
MSRP
$4.95

Quickboost has added exhausts for the Academy Hellcat F6F-3/5 to its like of detail sets. They are molded in grayish resin, smooth, seamless and bubble-free.

The exhausts that come in the Eduard kit are okay but just lack the level of detail that the Quickboost parts have. The Quickboost parts are really superior. The biggest plus is that the ends are hollowed out, while the Eduard exhausts are not. This can really save you a lot of time if you were going to hollow out the kit parts, not to mention how great they will look on the finished model. The Quickboost parts for the Eduard Hellcat aren’t just drop-in parts like a lot of other Quickboost parts. The exhausts on the Eduard kit are molded onto the fuselage and will need to be cut and sanded off. Once this bit of surgery is out of the way, you will be very happy with the resulting improvement.

Review Author
Paul Mahoney
Published on
December 19, 2011
Company
Eduard
Scale
1/48
MSRP
$33.00

The entire crew area of the Focke Wulf 189 is housed under a greenhouse, and thus is highly visible. While Great Wall’s 1/48 kit is very nicely detailed and actually does include some photoetch, these Eduard sets augment the kit’s interior in a meaningful way.

  • Interior SA set is $33.00, Stock # 49565
  • Zoom detail set is $20.00, Stock # FE565

Eduard’s #49565 is the complete interior set, comprising 2 frets – 1 in full color and with self-adhesive backing, and a 2nd with additional interior details. The Zoom set contains just the colored, self-adhesive fret (Fret 1). All the pieces on both sets have Eduard’s typical sharp details.

Review Author
Michael Scott
Published on
December 19, 2011
Company
Zvezda
Scale
1/350
MSRP
$79.00

The British battleship HMS Dreadnought is widely thought to have been the first of the modern battleship designs, culminating in the Missouri class built during WWII. When the Dreadnought was launched in December, 1906, after only slightly more than a year in building – a pace unheard of prior to her building – she revolutionized battleship design and made all other existing battleships obsolete. The reasons for this were simple. She carried a massive, for the period, main armament and relied on only a single caliber, 12" 45 cal, for her main battery. Prior designs had mixed larger caliber guns which created problems when they were all firing and the fire control crews were attempting to determine which rounds to spot and adjust for more accurate fire. With only one large caliber, there would be no confusion as to which battery’s fire was to be adjusted.