The Westland Wessex HU.5 was a British commando/utility helicopter upgraded from the Sikorsky H-34. They were also used by the Royal Navy for SAR work and I was lucky enough to spend a week with our local SAR Flight at HMS Daedalus back in 1981 as part of a work experience programme. I was taken for a number of flights including one where I played the part of a ‘survivor’, being winched up and down from the cabin. Fun times!

Italeri released their 1/48 Wessex HU.5 in 2012 and it is a fine kit, though not without a few issues. Aires’ Quickboost brand has a number of improvement sets for the kit, including this new 3D printed one. The nose of the Wessex 5 has a large and very distinctive debris guard over the nose air intake. In the kit, this is represented by a two-part construct which traps a piece of provided plastic mesh. This looks OK when made, but cries out for a finer, better solution.

Modern soldiers today most likely wear body armor in combat to protect against bullets. That was not always the case as body armor designed to stop rounds really came about in the early 2000s. Prior to that flak jackets, designed to protect US airmen against shrapnel and explosives from German “flak” rounds, and evolved to protect US ground troops in Korea through the 1990s. Body armor hails back to antiquity and knights were the penultimate examples.

This is a good book if you want to understand the Israel-Palestine conflict. Author Bill Norton does an incredible job of stripping away the hyperbole and myths surrounding the current events of this conflict. I thought I knew more than the average person about modern Israel history: this book has changed my thinking. This book will challenge a lot of conventional thinking, and you will quickly realize that there is no one good side, the situation is murky, muddy, and messy. Both sides have valid points and excess abuses.

The title alone is worth picking up the book and is even more impressive when it is laid out that Israel is in a conflict on seven fronts over a two (and now three) year span. The seven fronts include: