Historical Background

This book presents a detailed description of the efforts of the German Luftwaffe to defend against the night bombing offensive of the British Royal Air Force during the course of World War II. Of course, the Americans were also involved, but their primary attacks were carried out in daylight, so the main German efforts were against the RAF bombers and Mosquito night fighters. The author gives a good account of the course of the war, and the technological development on both sides as the war dragged on. The Luftwaffe’s main problem was their shortage of fuel supplies, and resulting restricted training programs. There were a number of approaches to the problems of locating enemy aircraft flying into German territory, and shooting them down without being shot down in return was a major issue.

Looking through the reviews on the IPMS USA website, I saw several about “AMMO by Mig Jimenez” Acrylic Paints and all agreed with my own assessment of this product. Rather than rehashing those reviews, suffice it to say, these are high quality paints, come in a wide assortment of colors, provide excellent coverage, are relatively easy to use either with an airbrush or brush, and are easy to clean up afterwards.

To complement their “Modern Luftwaffe Vol.1” AIR SET which provides colors for the Luftwaffe’s green and black camouflaged aircraft, AMMO released another set for the gray camouflaged aircraft. This AIR SET, “Modern Luftwaffe Vol.2” provides the gray shades of paint used on the Mig-29, F-4F, and Typhoon II.

From viewing internet photos (very unscientific, I know), I think these colors can also be used on the Luftwaffe’s Airbus A310, Airbus A400, and Tornado IDS.

The colors in this set are:

Yellow Wings has dedicated itself to US markings during the period from 1930 to 1945 and makes decals specific to that time frame. Many do actually have the beautiful yellow wings from that time period also! This release covers the Curtiss P-40 and specifically between 1941 and 1942 for the 20th Pursuit Group and the commanders aircraft in 1/32nd scale. Markings are included for three aircraft:

This metal landing gear set from SAC replaces the gear parts and pitot mast in the new tool Airfix Bristol Beaufort kit. Like its cousins from Bristol, the Blenheim and Beaufighter, the Beaufort has a multipart, complex main gear structure. Airfix has done a good job reproducing this in plastic. The SAC parts are direct copies of those. I compared the assembly of the plastic parts against the white metal SAC pieces. I found the plastic parts had an advantage.

This set is designed to provide replacement parts for Hobby Boss’ 1/72 A-4F Skyhawk kit. As with most of SAC’s landing gear sets, the metal parts are intended to be one-for-one replacements for the kit parts. The set consists of the nose gear strut, port and starboard main gear struts and retraction/extension arms for all three of these.

Like the kit part, the nose wheel is cast with the nose strut. SAC has also cast the nosewheel steering (part C21) as part of the strut, however as the arms on this part are very thin, they are easily bent, so take care around them. The set also includes the retraction/extension actuator for the nose strut, however, as the actuator is very skinny, it is easily deformed and when I first looked at it, I thought it was a brake line as the one in my set was pretty curvy.