Box Art / Packaging

The Tamiya RSO/01 German Tractor is a brand-new tooled release presented in Tamiya's typical rigid top opener with crisp artwork depicting a unit from the 1^st Skijager Division, Eastern Front, 1944.

This 100% newly tooled kit complements the existing 1/35 scale line up of German WWII vehicles in the Military Miniature Series and is also designed to be used with last year's release of the 50mm Pak38, kit # 35392.

The box contains a normal Tamiya instruction manual with clear construction steps, 37 in all, to complete this kit.

Also included is a glossy ‘background information’ leaflet which provides some history and details of the different designs and variants for the RSO through the WWII campaign.

It also contains details of the specifications of this Light Tank, including dimensions, crew capacity, engine (with speed and output) as well as range and armament.

This figure kit is produced by Aerobonus and is designed to be used in conjunction with several Korean War aircraft subjects or as a stand-alone figure. It’s nicely cast in 1/32 scale from a medium gray resin. The casting is crisp and clean, and contains four parts which include the main body, a head and a right and left arm. Assembly was very easy and there was no flash present on any of the castings.

Representing a US Air Force mechanic on a winter flight line somewhere, the figure is dressed in typical grab found during this time period in a cold weather environment, A coat with hood and heavy gloves cover the upper torso. A baseball like cap covers the head. And the lower torso has Utility style trousers and boots.

This was a very easy figure to separate and clean up. As mentioned, there was no flash present on any of the four castings, and the only real clean up involved removal of the pour gates. A quick job handled with a razor saw.

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.

During the latter part of World War 2, as it lost its iron grip on the skies, Germany began to rely more and more on antiaircraft guns and weapons as its first line of defense against marauding Allied aircraft. What this meant in practical terms is that they had to range far and wide to find suitable vehicles to create mobile mounts for all sorts of weaponry, putting them on virtually anything that could move and handle the weight. Of course, eventually this expedient rigging became unsustainable, but not without cost to the allies.

Tamiya’s new 1/35^th scale Fukuiraptor kit depicts a Cretaceous-era dinosaur that was found near Fukui Japan. It seems that this kit is intended to be an easy model for young or inexperienced builders. There are only a dozen parts, and at a price of $9.25 can be had for pocket money. With this kit, Tamiya introduces what they call “Clic Loc” design. The parts of this kit press-fit together so that no glue is required.

Included in the kit box are two trees of plastic parts and a small brochure. One tree of parts contains all the parts for the dinosaur. The second tree has the base and a silhouette of two people to serve as a scale reference. The brochure is printed in Japanese, English, German, and French. One side of the brochure has information about the history and ecology of Fukuiraptor, the other side has instructions for constructing the model.