The White Ensign Models PE set finally arrived from across the pond. It is extensive and finely done, as are all WEM photo etch. The two frets contain enough extra photo etch to build various versions of the Dreadnought as she appeared throughout her service life. I am building the early version, but there are details to represent all the main versions of the ship.

Fans of the Imperial Japanese Navy have something new to put on their wish lists – a new, beautifully illustrated reference book! Kagero, based in Lublin, Poland, has published a new addition to their illustrated 3D series of historic warships. They have previously published 3D books on the Heavy Cruisers Takao and Aoba.

Using computerized graphics, the authors have created detailed 3-D illustrations of the Tone’s exterior from stem to stern from nearly every possible angle, in what appears to be her appearance after her last refit in the summer of 1944. It also comes with a bonus foldout that provides a profile of the ship rendered in black and white and some additional illustrations.

Over the past year or so, we have seen a new supply of USS Arizona kits in all scales from Trumpeter, Dragon, and Hobby Boss. A popular scale seems to be 1/700 scale, where we have also seen a kit of the USS Pennsylvania. While both ships had generally the same look up till Pearl Harbor, the Penn later underwent extensive changes. My great uncle had the privilege of serving his country with the United States Navy, and was assigned to the USS Pennsylvania. On December 7th, he was at Pearl Harbor while the Penn was in drydock. He survived Pearl and continued on the Penn through the entire war, and was still with her up until she was scuttled after being used as a target ship for nuclear tests. (My uncle was actually part of the skeleton/scuttling crew and was the 4th to last person to set foot on the mighty ship.) With my family’s ties to the Pennsylvania class, I naturally purchased all of the recent model releases.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Dutch and the English were both great maritime nations. Their trade routes were far reaching and their trading companies rich and powerful. It was inevitable that a conflict would arise between them. In a series of three wars called the Anglo-Dutch Wars, the two countries fought for naval supremacy and for control of the seas and trading rights. A little political intrigue was mixed in just to make it interesting.

The first war, caused by commercial rivalry, took place from 1652-1654 during the time of English parliamentary and military rule by Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector. Cromwell eventually decided that the two Puritan nations should be allies instead of antagonists and opened negotiations for peace.

On the 70th anniversary of the Hawaiian Operation (as the Imperial Japanese Navy called it), Model Art Winter quarterly is all about Kido Butai, the Japanese fleet that attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Most of this issue is devoted to building detailed 1/700 models of the major Japanese warships (light cruisers and larger) and the submarines that attacked Pearl Harbor. Thus, this issue is strictly for IJN buffs.

Model Art quarterly issues are a larger format than their monthly issues. As usual, almost the entire text is in Japanese, but the pictures tell a thousand words. Page 1 has the usual four postcards of IJN warship paintings by Yukio Mizuno. Pages 3-7 are the Table of Contents and ads. Pages 8-15 are a new kit review of Hasegawa’s 1/350 Hikawa Maru liner.