Born from the great North American F-86A, the F-86D/K all weather interceptor had a long and widespread career. It served the USA both home and abroad and as this book covers with 7 NATO air forces as well as US forces in Europe. The F-86D/K served NATO until the final ones were retired from the Italian Air Force in 1973.

The book has 5 total sections with the first section a brief overview of its development and production. Section Two covers the USAF in Europe. Section 3 is the largest section comprising 50 pages with coverage of the type’s service in Royal Danish, French, West German, Royal Hellenic, Italian, Royal Netherland and Royal Norwegian Air Force. Section Four has a look inside with manual pages and detail pictures reproduced throughout. The book ends with the squadron badge of every unit in Europe both US and European to operate the F-86D/K.

IPMS/USA again thanks Ross and his Team at SAC for supporting the IPMS USA reviewer corps with one more of many monthly releases, with extremely useful and well-thought out landing gear additions for the modeling crowd out here in the modeling world. And thanks to IPMS leadership for sending it to me to be reviewed.

Consisting of 14 separate well-cast white metal parts, this gear is the usual replacement for the kit gear. It’s been my experience that GWH tends to use a more robust plastic than many other manufacturers, but SAC metal gear is still worthwhile to install.

When I was younger my comics of choice were of the Military persuasion and one of my favorites was The Haunted Tank which initially featured an M3 Stuart blowing away Tigers with it’s 37mm. I didn’t realize the issue with that but I loved the stories and so started my love of the Stuart. As I got older I turned to more history books and read about the Honey used by the British in the desert and the US in Tunisia. When the new Tamiya kit showed up it just had to be built even though I haven’t built a 35^th scale tank in, cough, 40ish years.

Fonthill Media’s Axis Suicide Squads – German and Japanese Secret Projects of the Second World War by Justo Miranda.

Author Justo Miranda has multiple books & publications out on Luftwaffe ‘paper-projects’ and late war designs. He is a tech drawer and Spanish Air Force Museum advisor.

This hardbound book is 224 pages and includes information on both actual aircraft used, and many “paper projects”.

The cover flap reads “This book details the designs of all German and Japanese aircraft, examining the suicide bombers and aerial rammers deployed as desperate measures to counter the Allied advance. Axis Suicide Squads is an in-depth history of the tragic necessity for such drastic countermeasures; it contains comprehensive technical information relating to each machine and detailed, hand-drawn diagrams depicting the mechanics of how the aircraft functioned.” This is a great summary of what this book is all about.

First things first: a hearty “Thank you” to Brengun for providing IPMS USA this little gem for review. We cannot function as well without our manufacturers support, and we sincerely appreciate Brengun’s provision of items to review. Thanks also to John and Phil for finding and distributing these items.

This set provides minor detail work for the Trumpeter TU-160. Big kit. Big. Particularly if the wings are in the parked and ready to take off position with flaps and slats out. Makes a B-1 look like an F-15 when parked next to a “Bone”. The engines are massive, the jet carries a lot, and the White Swan is impressive from any angle.