This product review will begin with a general introduction to GasPatch Models. GasPatch Models is located in Athens, Greece. GasPatch was founded in 2011 and produces plastic model kits and an excellent array of aftermarket parts intended for WWI aircraft subjects. One gets a sense of the professional nature of this enterprise by visiting the GasPatch website. The website is first-rate in appearance, navigation of the site is intuitive, and finding specific items is simple, easy, and quick. In a word…the site is an excellent site and reflects well on GasPatch as a company.

At the time of this writing, GasPatch has three variants of the Salmson 2A2 in the planning stages, all in 1/48^th scale. This review, however, focuses on some GasPatch products that are already available. GasPatch produces a line of turnbuckles and air speed indicators in 1/48^th and 1/32^nd scales. This review focuses on these turnbuckle accessory packs.

A Brief History

Had someone come to me even 5 years ago and said that in the near future, we modelers would be seeing kits of relatively obscure WW2 Hungarian tanks on the market from main stream injection manufacturers, I would have asked him what happy juice he’d been drinking. I would have demanded to be given a glass! We are, indeed, living in a Gold Age of modeling!

The 38M Toldi light tank was derived from the Swedish Stridsvagn L-60, produced in Hungary by the Hungarian Weiss Company under a licensing agreement from AB Lansverk. Three versions of the 38M Toldi were produced, with total production reaching 202 vehicles from 1939 to 1942. The tanks were first used by the Hungarian Army during fighting against Yugoslavian forces in 1941, and later saw action against Soviet forces during Operation Barbarossa. They were utilized mainly in reconnaissance, as the tank was no match in tank vs. tank battles against the likes of the Soviet T-34.

The Russian T-34 was the mainstay of the Red Army during World War II, with about 50,000 produced. The Russians produced numerous variants of the T-34 throughout the war. This Dragon offering is the T-34/76 (for 76mm gun) with the pressed steel turret. This turret was made out of 45mm steel, which actually had better protection then the 52mm turret it was based on. The commander’s cupola was added in the summer of 1943, so this kit falls into that variant timeframe. Many of the sprues are from earlier Dragon T-34 kits and we only use about half the parts. We get 24 sprues with 644 parts, including 85 photo etched parts, three clear parts, a wire tow cable, and two bags of Magic Track links. The joy of stocking your parts box is included with this kit.

• Hobbyboss F4U-4 Corsair, # 80387, $55.99
• True Details Propeller and Cowling Set, #48552, $12.99

Huge thanks as usual go to our friends at MMD Squadron for providing us these great kits and manufacturing the accessories to improve them. We at IPMS USA appreciate your support (and thanks, Dick and Steve, for trusting my questionable skills to execute a review!).

This kit brings yet another Corsair to the stable. In the box is, of course, an excellent F4U-4 kit with minute, delicate surface detail. Multiple options such as antennas, folded or extended wings, and an open canopy are offered. A decal sheet with two Korean War marking options is provided, and a full-color “here’s what it should look like” paint leaflet is also there. All parts are individually bagged and protected; the cowl and clear parts are separated from the main parts by a cardboard divider.

Airfix is releasing all sorts of interesting/strange subjects in their current burst of productivity and this is one of them. It's an old kit that originally dates from 1972, at one point was motorized, and is now billed as part of their Museum Collection. I selected it thinking it would be a fun diversion from my more "intense" projects. Wrong. This is not a simple build. You need to pay attention to what's going on and what goes where and, because it's a cutaway, what needs to be painted before you do anything. There are leftover parts when you're done that I can only assume were once part of the motorization, and some of the rest of the parts are similar to each other, so you need to pay attention to parts' numbers. Be careful during assembly, as some parts need to go together in a certain order and in particular orientations.