As many modelers know, Italeri has recently released their own line of model paints. These are not formulated by another company and packaged under the Italeri label. Since I was working on a review with the Trumpeter Russian ChTZ S-65 Tractor kit, it seemed like a nice fit.

The paint comes in plastic bottles that hold 20 ml of paint. The paint is very thick, almost like craft paint, so it brushes on well, but I was interested in how it would airbrush. I thinned it down with water to about the consistency of milk and, for the most part, it seemed to airbrush well and evenly, but each person will have to use their best judgment on how thin the paint should be.

Well, it’s another of those books about a little known battle of World War II, but as I read this book, I became convinced that it was important for several reasons.

Demyansk is a small town in Russia which sits about halfway between Moscow and Leningrad. This position makes the battle important. The Wehrmacht had punched through the Soviet armies in the western Soviet Union, and made fast advances toward both Leningrad and Moscow. Because the terrain west of Demyansk is mostly swamps and marshes, the advance in the areas between Moscow and Leningrad were slower. Also, there weren’t as many troops provided for this less important push. The OKW was certain they’d have both of the major cities shortly, so why bother with the farmland and villages between?

Designed to replicate the paint scheme on Sukhoi Su-30 demonstration aircraft, these F-15 markings are for the only aircraft of the 65th Aggressor Squadron to be painted in this manner. My copy of the decals has all three scales represented, 72nd, 48th and 32^nd. The one thing about Twobobs products is the level of research that goes into a product. This sheet is no different.

The instruction sheet is printed on high, full color paper and contains some small photos of the real thing. The instructions provide a listing of the accessories that are available, and not just the ones available through Twobobs. The background of the full color instruction sheet will aid and inspire the modeler. The instructions provide four-view drawings that provide the modeler with an excellent reference for markings placement. This aircraft will be a masking “fun time”.

This book is, as the title implies, the story of Adolph “Sailor” Malan. From the imprint information, this appears to have originally been released in 1980, but this particular edition was published in 2011.

While this is not a research/reference type of book per se, it is a good read for anyone interested in one of the RAF’s premier pilots during WW2. It is nice to take a break from the mechanics of line drawings, measurements, paint schemes, and the like, and delve into some of the human personalities involved in the conflict from which many of us model machines.

This book very briefly covers Malan’s time growing up in South Africa, and his time as a naval cadet and subsequent 8 years at sea. (This would be the source of the “Sailor” moniker). It then quickly moves into his transition to the RAF, completing his training in 1937 and being posted to 74 Squadron.

This year is the 30th anniversary of the Falklands/Malvinas War or the South Atlantic conflict, as it has been known. As such, different plastic model kit sets and publications are been released and The Falklands 1982, Ground Operations in the South Atlantic is among them.

The Falkland conflict included combat in the air, sea and ground. This book concentrates on the ground combat. It is impossible not to refer to the other arms in any conflict, but as the author clearly states a few times during the book, the content is devoted to the ground operations.

The book covers the operations in a chronological order, starting with the events of South Georgia in March, 1982, before moving into the Falklands itself, with the Argentine landings in April, the British landings in May, and the subsequent ground campaign in June, 1982.