This book describes the design, development, and operational history of US-made tanks in British service in World War II. The British were initially reluctant to endorse the American-made tanks as they felt they were inferior to British developed tanks. The British eventually appreciated the simplicity of American designed tanks and modified them to meet British needs. The Lend Lease program allowed Britain to obtain American tanks in adequate numbers to take pressure off of the British manufacturers. By the end of World War II the British tank regiments were equipped with more Sherman tanks than any other type.

This is a Zimmerit Decal set for the Meng Model Sd.Kfz. 182 King Turret (Porsche Turret) kit TS-037.

The set contains one sheet of textured decals and one instruction sheet.

Zimmerit was widely used on the early King Tigers. These decals will make adding the Zimmerit a lot easier.

The decals are printed onto one sheet with the patterns in relief. Individual decals are supplied for all the various areas of front, Sides and rear armor. The turret has the most decals to ensure all the areas are covered properly.

The textured pattern is very nicely raised on the decals and looks very good once applied.

It is highly recommended to primer coat under the contoured areas especially.

According to Sir Isaac Newton’s Third Law of Motion: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. This law describes the action of warfare as well, and so when the Allies introduced the revolutionary “tank” onto the battlefields of Western Europe in 1916, the opposing German forces quickly attempted to blunt the tank with the introduction of anti-tank weapons together with dedicated anti-tank units, known as Panzerjagertruppe. During the Second World War the anti-tank units were known as Panzerjager, or “Tank Hunters”, a separate arm of the Wehrmacht dedicated to the destruction of enemy tank forces. These troops utilized a wide variety of weapons, from man portable items such as anti-tank rifles, to towed artillery pieces such as the 3.7cm PaK and 8.8cm Flak 18, and self-propelled weapons such as the Panzerjager 1.

The M113 is a long serving fully tracked APC that was first fielded in Vietnam by the US Army in 1962. It has long been replaced by the M2 and M3 Bradley in front line roles but this versatile chassis still has a number of units in service in support roles. One of the most interesting uses of this chassis is the M163 Vulcan Air Defense System or VADS. This marries the M113 to the M168 rotary cannon, which is a variant of the 20MM M61. This new injection molded kit from Academy is one among previously released versions of the M113 chassis. It is an oldie yet goodie chassis with some new sprues that to add the parts for the M163 variant.

The Interior kit is includes a lot of steps and refers to what parts/build steps from the main tank kit you need to do to build the whole tank correctly which is a great help and very easy to follow. There are also several parts that will not be used as they are from the other version of the King Tiger with the Henschel turret. Also a very good idea is the amount of painting instruction details given at each of the build stages.

Step 1 through 6 - builds parts of the lower hull and suspension real no issues. I would suggest that the part numbers M2 and M6 (stage 3 and 4) at Stage 1 before the cross supports are installed to easy installation. I also found it would be easy to install P50 incorrectly. The part M8 was also a tight fit. The parts Q10 and Q1 need to carefully be installed.