First, thanks to Pavla for first producing and then providing this kit to IPMS/USA for review; your excellent products continue to amaze me!

This is an extremely simple kit; yet it has complexity in the fact that it is a limited production item and therefore has ejection pin towers for cleanup. Fortunately these are all on the inside of the kit parts… it also has extremely small photoetch; be forewarned if you are an old guy like me. The overall presentation is excellent; I had little or no issues with getting things in place. The instructions are basic diagrams, showing where everything is supposed to go. I caused a minor problem in that the rear cockpit needed to be installed a bit higher than I installed it, as there are no locating pins or rails. The kit contains a runner of parts, one Photoetch fret, two excellent clear canopies, and a decal sheet with optional Luftwaffe and Soviet “captured aircraft” markings.

Once again Dragon has taken a previously released armor kit and has added Zimmerit, re-releasing it as a new kit. This is a good thing if you don’t feel you want to try to apply the Zimmerit using various types of putties and tools. To achieve this Dragon provides us with 26 plastic sprues of varying sizes. Two Brummbar sprues, four STUG III G sprues and only a few specifically for the STUG IV, most of the sprues are for the Panzer IV. Total part count comes to 751 parts; the number of unused parts is 207 leaving 544 parts to build the model. Several sprues have the same letter; Dragon gets around this by having one letter in black and the second same letter in blue. I mark the outside of the bags to make it easy to find the right sprue when I need it.

This is the Academy “Achilles” kit put into an Italeri box and marketed. The sprues all say Academy and the only difference is the decals and instruction sheet. The Academy kit is a gorgeous representation of the British version of the American M10 “Wolverine”. There are a few interior issues with stowage and rounds but it builds into a great model just the way it is.

What you get is the ten Academy sprues done in beautiful tan plastic, two vinyl T-62 riveted tracks, a 16-page instruction booklet, length of twine (for tow cable), and decal sheet to mark four vehicles. The vehicles are two Polish Division machines and two British vehicles. One of the British vehicles has a neat looking black and green camouflage pattern. The only first look issues are the interior turret plates. These are littered with ejector pin sink marks that are going to need to be cleaned up. The worst part is that these are mostly oblong instead of round ejector pits.

History

The Hawker MK1B Typhoon is a British made aircraft and one of the most formidable used in WWII. It was used as a bomber/interceptor and also as a ground support aircraft. Top speed of this aircraft was 417 mph. and it could climb to 20,000 ft. in 7.6 min.

The Kit

The kit is made up of injection molded gray plastic parts. The details were excellent with minimal flash and no defects.

In construction, I started with the cockpit, adding details and painting the interior portion. Prior to assembling the wing halves, the wheel well areas were painted. After assembling the fuselage and wing halves, I proceeded to put the completed fuselage, wing and tail surfaces together.

Editor’s note: “Luft ‘46” are hypothetical Luftwaffe aircraft which may have been available had the war continued into 1946 and beyond. They are broad-brush extrapolations and probably not connected to reality.

This is an in-box review of this hypothetical German fighter from Encore.

First up is the box with great artwork on the front. It shows pictures of the model with alternate paint schemes on the back. Encore has been doing a lot lately, and this kit shows it! The instruction sheet is well done, and it is both informative and easy to follow. It shows potential pitfalls during the build, though I do not anticipate any.

While the plastic is nicely scribed 9 of the 16 pieces are not used. Those used are complemented by additional parts made in cream-colored resin, including pulse jet engines; cockpit; nose-guns, tail surfaces, and ailerons. There are 21 resin parts in all, as well as your choice of a vacuformed or an injection plastic canopy.