The Ship

Originally laid down as the luxury liner Kashiwara Maru in 1939, Junyo (along with her sister Hiyo) was part of an IJN subsidized building program of commercial and auxiliary vessels that could be quickly converted into aircraft carriers if the need arose. She was taken in hand by the Navy and commissioned in 1942 in time to participate in the Aleutians invasion in June, part of the overall Midway operation.

This is the second detailing set from Quickboost for the new Trumpeter Su-24 Fencer kits and focuses on the external antennas. The set includes replacements for 3 of the antennas in the kit and provides 5 others that are not in the kit. As the set is market simply for the Trumpeter Su-24, you may need to alter the antenna locations a little bit depending on whether you are building the Su-24MR or the Su-24M.

The antennas are sharply cast in Quickboost’s standard resin and the castings not only include the individual antennas, but also the mounting plate by which the antenna is attached to the aircraft. The antennas are easily separated from the cast block, either with a razor saw or even with sprue nippers. I removed the antennas one at a time, sanded down the mounting plate and then attached the antenna with superglue before moving on to the next antenna.

Osprey Publishing continues to expand its weapon series, this time by adding a book on the exemplary Finnish-made Suomi KP/-31 submachine gun.

The book has a very reasonable breakdown of the following chapters: Introduction, development, use, impact, conclusion and bibliography, plus an index.

I’ve found particularly interesting the development, use and impact chapters. They were clearly really well researched and it included descriptions of the weapon characteristics, as well as the description of its use in combat by the Finnish ski troops against the Soviet troops. It should be noted that this submachine gun could also be used as a sniper gun, giving its high accuracy up to distances of several hundred meters.

Perhaps one of the best compliments to the overall design and performance is that this particular submachine gun was somewhat copied by the soviets and issued to their own troops in the later years of the war.

This decal sheet states that it was designed exclusively for use with Eduard’s outstanding 1/72 Fw 190A series of kits. The sheet provides seven different styles of Balkenkreuze, consisting of the simple white outline Balkenkreuze for the upper wings, and three options for both the fuselage and the underwing Balkenkreuze. There are the simple black Balkenkreuze outline, a solid black Balkenkreuze with a white border and the solid black Balkenkreuze with the white outline and a thin black outline outside of the white. This provides a lot of options to match the style Balkenkreuze used on the aircraft you are modeling.

As with all of Eduard’s new decals, these are very thin, but strong and react extremely well to Microsol and Microset, snuggling right down over details without silvering.

Thank you to the great folks at Eduard for releasing an elegant upgrade set to enhance their kit of a unique Sikorsky flying boat. Thank you also to the IPMS Reviewer Corps staff members who do the hard work in getting us kits to review, the reviews posted, and the news spread to the world.

The Sikorsky JRS-1, or S-43, is similar in appearance to the famous Pan Am Clipper, the S-42. I did not know that several of these planes survived the Pearl Harbor attack, and went in search of the Japanese fleet immediately afterward. This upgrade is very nice supplement to the base kit.

Overall Summary

The upgrade parts are all on a thin brass etched fret 2.75 x 3.25 inches in size. A color instruction and accurate placement guide accompanies the parts. Additional details for the cockpit and exterior are included. Fold lines are etched, allowing very precise forming of even the smallest handles and other small details.