This issue represents a milestone for SAM. This is the inaugural issue for Volume 35. Thirty five years of providing a high quality publication to the modeling community is a momentous event and SAM deserves a “Well Done” for that remarkable achievement.

Even if this issue were not the launch for Vol 35, it would have caught my attention immediately. There, on the cover, is one of my favorite modeling subjects. In any scale, the Ju-87 has always been an enjoyable project for me, and in 1/32nd, by Trumpeter, well, it just doesn’t get any better than that. In 9 pages of richly detailed text, Editor Jay Laverty shares the tools and techniques he used to produce an excellent model of the Ju-87B-2.

At first glance, the Diamond T 4-ton Truck looks like the “Deuce and a Half” (2½ CCKW GMC series) on steroids. The U.S. Quartermaster Corps and Corps of Engineers needed a truck that could do everything the “Deuce and a Half” could do – and much, much more. The Diamond T 4-ton truck filled the bill, serving throughout WWII in all theatres. But the Diamond T had one major problem: it cost as much as twice that of the CCKW! So it was bought in smaller quantities and served the U.S. Military just over 10 years. It was the basis upon which the post-war M-34/M-35 2½ trucks and M-41/M54 5-ton series were based.

Modelers’ Guide to the P-38 Lightning is the third in a series of books published by Aero Research to aid modelers who want to build accurate models of specific aircraft. According to the first sentence in the book’s introduction: “This book is a guide to building any military variant of the P-38 Lightning, using existing kits.” That is not an understatement. The book will be a very useful reference for anyone planning to build any P-38. All variants, from prototype to the M model (and all photo-recon versions) are included. Author Jay Sherlock has done a thorough job of researching and organizing pertinent information that modelers usually find they need sometime during a project. As a matter of fact, the book will come in handy before starting the project – when deciding which kit to purchase. The first chapter describes in detail all kits currently available in 1/44, 1/72, 1/48 and 1/32 scales, and each description includes a small color photo of the box top.

I started war gaming when I was in high school because I was always interested in military history. I’ve also wondered about the “what if” scenarios of different battles. My interest in the subject just stayed with me through college and even into the Navy. I remember while I was at the anti-submarine warfare base in San Diego, California, my barracks room mates and I used to push our bunks out of the way and play General Quarters, metal warships and all. So when they wanted someone to review the War and Conquest rules book, I just had to jump at the chance to do it.

This book looks at all of the piston engine fighter aircraft used by Sweden from 1925 to 1946 and their paint schemes. Each aircraft is covered with many period pictures, some even in color. There is a section on the operational history, a listing of production numbers, as well as a chart detailing the individual aircraft history of all aircraft of each type that served Sweden. Each aircraft section ends with color notes spelling out the colors used for each. While not in FS numbers, these callout will still prove useful to the modeler. The book is more of a history of these aircraft in Swedish service with color information included than it is an in-depth analysis of the colors used on these aircraft.