History Brief

The A-25 Shrike was the USAAF variant of the Curtiss SB2C Helldiver, a carrier-based dive bomber aircraft produced for the United States Navy during World War II. Nine hundred aircraft were ordered by the USAAF under the designation A-25A Shrike. The first ten aircraft had folding wings, while the remainder of the production order omitted this unnecessary feature. Many other changes distinguished the A-25A, including larger main wheels, a pneumatic tail wheel, ring and bead gun sight, longer exhaust stubs, and Army-specified radio equipment. By late 1943 when the A-25A was being introduced, the USAAF no longer had a role for the dive bomber, as fighter aircraft such as the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt had shown their ability to carry out tactical air support missions with great success.

This book is a follow on companion book to the author’s “Convair Advanced Designs that I was also fortunate to review for IPMS/USA! This book covers 41 different aircraft, some that were built and some that were only designs each is given its own chapter.

The list of aircraft covered is as follows:

Roden continues with their line of 1/72 Opel Blitz truck kits in 1/72 scale. The Opel Blitz was one of the most popular three ton trucks produced by the Germans during the Second World War. Manufactured in a 4x2 and 4x4 version, this kit represents the last production model of the truck. Rather than using sheet metal throughout the vehicle, the cab was manufactured from wood. Production continued until 1948 with a production run of 11,000 vehicles.

The kit is molded in light grey plastic in three sprues with 115 parts. There is a sheet of Mylar for the three windows and there are decals for one vehicle. The parts are crisply molded and there are many small and fragile parts that must be removed from the sprues very carefully. Try as I might, the drive shaft, snapped and flew across the room. I was able to retrieve the two broken pieces. The kit does include an engine with many small components.