Tiger 1 German Army Heavy Tank Southern Front

Published: January 20, 2022
Book Author(s): Dennis Oliver
Company: Pen and Sword Books Ltd

Pen and Sword Books’ latest release in their Tank Craft series details the Pzkpfw VI Tiger 1 Heavy Tank. This series of books is designed to provide model builders and tank enthusiasts a detailed visual reference of the actual tanks featured, as well as their scale model equivalents. This book focuses specifically on the Tiger I tanks deployed to the southern front for the North Africa campaign through the retreat and withdrawal into Sicily and up Italy until the end of hostilities in May 1945.

The book starts with a bullet point timeline of the major battles and military movements by both the Allied and Axis forces across the Southern Front of the war in Europe, starting with Operation Supercharge in November 1942 through the end of fighting in May 1945. History buffs might be… more

Lockheed P-38J Lightning

Published: November 5, 2018
Company: Minicraft Model Kits

Minicraft produces a variety of aircraft kits in 1/48^th, 1/72^nd, and 1/144^th scale, but I always associate them with the wide variety of 1/144^th planes they offer.

Over the years, Minicraft has released and re-released this version of the P-38 a number of times. Many times it’s just a new boxing, or has a different decal scheme, but every time it’s been the same kit. The kit itself was originally the Crown models mold, and like Helen of Troy had a face that launched a thousand ships, it appears that Crown has the mold that launched a thousand boxings of the P-38. The last time I built this kit, it was packaged in a Minicraft/Academy boxing, but the original “new tool” is from 1975. Since that time, this kit has been sold by Crown, AHM… more

Italian Armoured & Reconnaissance Cars 1911–45

Published: October 24, 2018
Book Author(s): Filippo Cappellano, Pier Paolo Battistelli
Company: Osprey Publishing

Osprey’s New Vanguard series is a well-established line of books featuring full color artworks, exploded and cutaway diagrams, and black and white photographs and diagrams. They can be a good resource for model makers, wargamers, or military history enthusiasts. I actually find that when I read them, they tend to inspire me to want to build a model of one or more of the subjects, which can be a good or bad thing depending on how you feel about your current stash level.

This book begins by detailing Italy’s use of armored cars well before the first world war. In 1911, Italy armored and armed a couple of Fiat trucks and used them in their war with the Ottoman Empire in present-day Libya. This was the first use of armored cars in war. Following World War I, and their participation… more

OKB Grigorov Soviet Heavy Tank SMK

Published: September 14, 2018
Company: OKB Grigorov

OKB Grigorov is a small model company based in Bulgaria that you may not be too familiar with. The company focuses primarily on AFVs, tanks, and naval ships in 1/72, 1/350 and 1/700 scales, and they have an extensive list of products available. They produce full resin kits with photo-etch enhancements, as well as resin, photo-etch, and white metal conversion pieces for other models. More recently, they began producing some plastic AFV kits.

The kit I reviewed is a 1/72 scale version of the Soviet Heavy Tank SMK. The SMK was named for a Communist Party official who was assassinated in the mid-30s, Sergei Mironovich Kirov. It was developed in the late 1930s during a competition to replace the multi-turreted T-35. The SMK, the T-100 (another multi-turret design), and the KV-1 were… more

US Armor Display Base 2

Published: August 18, 2018
Company: Coastal Kits

Coastal Kits is based in Lancashire, UK, and began marketing their own range of display bases at the end of 2012. Since that time, their business has grown and concentrates almost exclusively on printed display bases for just about any type of model you ever wanted to build in just about any scale. Looking thru the offerings on their website is almost overwhelming there are so many choices, and they will even custom-make bases.

The display bases are manufactured from 3mm Foamex board, which feels like a rigid mousepad. The material is basically a waterproof plastic, with a printed display on one side. The pre-printed image is a high-quality image on a laminated, wipeable matt vinyl surface which, according to Coastal Kits will not raise or bubble like it was printed on paper.… more

Armor Display Base (Small)

Published: August 7, 2018
Company: Coastal Kits

Coastal Kits is based in Lancashire, UK, and began marketing their own range of display bases at the end of 2012. Since that time, their business has grown and concentrates almost exclusively on printed display bases for just about any type of model you ever wanted to build in just about any scale. Looking thru the offerings on their website is almost overwhelming there are so many choices, and they will even custom-make bases.

The display bases are manufactured from 3mm Foamex board, which feels like a rigid mousepad. The material is basically a waterproof plastic, with a printed display on one side. The pre-printed image is a high-quality image on a laminated, wipeable matt vinyl surface which, unlike paper products, will not raise or bubble.

This base provides an… more

T-60 Early Series. Soviet Light Tank Interior Kit

Published: February 3, 2020
Company: MiniArt

The T-60 was a light tank designed for scout and reconnaissance missions that was rushed into production a month after the start of Operation Barbarossa. Over a two-year period, approximately 7,000 of these vehicles were built. The T-60 scout tank was lightly armored, lightly armed with a 20mm canon a a machine gun, that was roundly hated by the two-man crews who operated it. The light armor, less than effective gun and poor engine performance lead to its operators naming it the “brother’s grave for two”. Although it was intended to be a support or reconnaissance vehicle, it often matched up against more superior German armor where it fared very poorly. Until factories could be equipped to produce the T-34, Soviet production continued and efforts were made to upgrade the firepower to a… more

Focke Wulf FW-190A-4/5 Landing Gear

Published: May 16, 2018
Company: Scale Aircraft Conversions

Scale Aircraft Conversions (SAC) produces white metal replacement gear for a variety of popular model kits from a variety of manufacturers. The white metal replacements are normally a one-for-one replacement with the plastic parts provided with the kit. Some landing gear sets consist of the main gear only while others include the nose gear, tail gear and wheels. In some cases, inaccuracies in the original kit gear are corrected, but the mounting points remain identical to the factory parts to ensure ease of use. The quality of the parts is normally spot on, or even better than the kit parts, and since the replacement parts are made of white metal, they provide the additional benefit of improved strength.

The parts provided in this set include replacement landing gear, tail… more

Dutch Walrus Submarine

Published: April 11, 2018
Company: OKB Grigorov

OKB Grigorov is a small model company based in Bulgaria that you may not be too familiar with. The company focuses primarily on AFVs, tanks, and naval ships in 1/72, 1/350 and 1/700 scales and they have an extensive list of products available. They produce full resin kits with photo-etch enhancements, as well as resin, photo-etch and white metal conversion pieces for other models.

The kit I reviewed is a 1/700 scale version of the Dutch Walrus class submarine. The Royal Netherlands Navy (RNN) currently operates four submarines. These submarines entered service with the RNN in 1990 and are named after sea mammals (Sea Lion, Porpoise, Dolphin, Walrus). The four boats are currently going thru an upgrade program and the picture on the cover of the model box is a photo of one of the… more

T-80 Photoetch Set

Published: March 27, 2018
Company: Hauler

Hauler produces photo-etched and resin upgrade sets for armored fighting vehicles (AFVs), airplanes, cars, railway vehicles, and dioramas. They also produce a few resin kits. Their products are in most of the common scale sizes, 1/72, 1/48, and 1/35, but they also produce a number of other items in common railroad hobbyist scales.

The kit for this review is a small set of photoetch designed to upgrade Revell’s 1/72 T-80 kit. The most obvious pieces of photoetch parts in this kit are designed to replace the plastic grills over the engine and exhaust, as well as the side skirts covering the lower portion of the tank’s hull. However, there are also parts to replace the stowage basket on the turret, the commander’s machine gun mount and ammo box, as well as the headlight… more