Fall Gelb 1940 was a detailed German deployment order designed to launch the initial phase of Hitler's military campaign to eliminate the Western democracies from the European conflict. Osprey Publishing covers this deployment order in the new book Fall Gelb 1940 (1): Panzer Breakthrough in the West.

The objective of the Fall Gelb was to defeat the largest possible forces of the Anglo-French army by an attack through Belgium and Luxembourg territory, thereby paving the way for the destruction of the military strength of the enemy.

Chief architect of the Fall Gelb plan was OKH Chief of Staff, General Franz Halder. Halder’s plan included four parallel branches:

This is a large, beautiful coffee table style photo-essay book. As the son of a D-Day veteran I was most anxious to read this book. 450 of the photos included are from the combat in Northern France. Some will seem familiar to the reader but many have never before been published. I especially like how in many cases the author has shown the original WWII photo and then beside or below that he has placed a modern photo of the same place taken at the same spot.

The book is divided into eight chapters! The are: The Buildup, From the Air, From the Sea, On the Beached, Point du Hoc, La Fiere, Graignes and Aftermath. Each is filled with photos that show everything from the men, equipment and geography to the carnage of battle.

Another in a series of Hasegawa kits replicating office and school furniture, this Science Room Desk and Chairs kit requires a little more time and effort to construction than the previously reviewed Conference Table and Chairs (62002) or School Desk and Chair (62001) kits. The science table and four chairs that are found in the kit took about 30 minutes to build.

The table surface is black, while the table, itself, is white. The stools are a tan color. Hasegawa advertises that this kit does not require glue, and I found that to be true, for the most part. I did fudge a bit and reinforced the “snap” fit of the table parts with a little glue. I also glued the water handles onto the faucet fitting.

Assembly is easy enough for a novice or young person to handle by themselves, so if Junior is looking for a diorama setting for a science experiment, this is it!

Thanks to Hobbico and Hasegawa for providing this review sample to IPMS/USA.

Hasegawa offers this 1/12^th Toy Machine to its expanding collection of 1/12^th furniture for offices and schools.

The kit provides parts for two Toy Machines that can be used as “stand alone” devices, mounted one on top of the other, or mounted side-by-side. There are some “toy capsules” that are included. A small plastic bag contains some yellow, red, blue and green spheres, and there are a dozen blue/clear spheres that must be snapped together.

As advertised, the Toy Machines do not require painting, and with the exception of one part they snap together with precision. The only issue I found was that Part A3, the turntable within the machine, did not fit as well as the other parts. A few swipes with a sanding stick took care of the problem.

A number of “signs” are provided on a piece of high gloss paper, and after cutting the favored sign from the sheet, it slips nicely into the machine.

Eduard Models is releasing some very useful tools for the modelers, like this glue applicator, dropper or kapátko (probably in Czech as it is written in the package).

This photoetch fret has a total of 10 applicators. The “jaws” in the applicator comes in two sizes, small and smaller glue drop. The two sizes of drops make this tool useful for different scales or different applications. Each applicator has its own engraved grip for better handling.

I can see this tool being extremely useful while working with photoetch parts (from Eduard, what else!) and it would prevent that ‘blob’ of superglue that we all have dealt with in our builds.

Highly recommended.

I would like to thank Eduard and IPMS/USA for the review sample.