The book is another in the great Casemate Images of War series. This book covers images from the invasion of Sicily through the invasion and progress up Italy until the wars end.

The images in the book are excellent and inspire ideas for dioramas for modelers.

The book is full of amazing photos of the Italian campaign, it is very much an overview as the subject is very large. It does tend to focus on the US forces.

I recommend this book to everyone with an interest in WWII.

Thanks go to Casemate Publishing for providing this book to review and IPMS USA for allowing me to review it for them

This is a review of the Alpha Abrasives plastic sanding needles

I wasn’t able to find the assorted sanding needles on the Alpha Abrasives website. There were only individual packages of course, medium, and fine.

The needles are evidently made in a two-part mold because there are two mold lines running down the shaft. Not very good if you want to sand a round hole. The mold lines would cause a nick in the hole.

Another item is the point. When/if you break the point or round it off, how are you supposed to get the point back?

While they may be useful for sanding contours, I can’t see them being used on round holes like a headlight or taillight.

Thank you to IPMS for allowing me to review this product.

Summary

This is a review of one of the many Alpha products designed specifically for scale modelers.

I have long been a fan of Alpha products in many of their forms. Especially their micro sanding pads which allow me to perform very finely detailed sanding and polishing. With this 5 pack I can use the entire sheet of sanding film or by combining the sheet (or smaller cut pieces) use them in model sanding. I also use smaller pieces cut into strips and held in place with double sided tape and mounted on small popsicle sticks. Alpha Graphics has produced their products for over 75 years and long established their reputation for high quality, long lasting sanding products.

Thank you Bill & Phil for all you do for the Reviewers and for the opportunity to review this publication.

Pen & Sword has released another outstanding book belonging to the Images of War series. As with other Images of War publications, it is a photographic essay detailing the pathway of General Paulus’ 6th Army annihilation at Stalingrad.

The Read

The book begins with a prelude which provides important information about the movements of the three German Army groups in Russia during 1941, and how and why the command chain changed allowing Friedrich Paulus to be appointed command of the 6^th Army. Through four chapters, the reader is taken via photographs and text through the struggles of the 6^th Army in their quest to fulfill Hitler’s misguided dream of conquering Stalingrad and ultimately Russia.

A recent arrival for the Review Corps were Shaders from Ammo by Mig Jimenez, which are a unique addition for modelers of just about anything. For this review in particular, I was provided with five of the colors including Light Gray (0856), Navy Gray (0857), Light Blue (0860), Marine Blue (0861), and Night Blue (0862). The full line consists of 20 different colors. The Shaders are unique to begin with as they are packaged in 10ml bottles, so they are about half the size of a typical bottle of acrylic paint. Shaders do not require shaking prior to use (they are about the consistency of ink), and they can be mixed to create different shades, and may be thinned with water if desired.