ICM Holding is a well-known Ukrainian kit manufacturer. ICM offers a variety of kits available in multiple scales and divided into subject areas.
Subject Areas:
Call me old-fashioned, but I consistently find myself being floored by the level of modeling detail available these days, especially with resin aftermarket materials. In the old days, you could only dream of this kind of quality.
Quickboost scores another one with their release of this outstanding set of P-38 gun barrels. Designed to fit the Trumpeter kit (although I suspect they’d fit the venerable Revell kit in the same scale). The set includes four .50 caliber barrels and the 20mm cannon barrel.
Each machine gun barrel has the lightening holes beautifully represented completely around the barrel as well as an open muzzle. The cannon barrel displays the minute recoil spring and an open muzzle as well. Designed to be drop-in pieces, they should require no additional work to add them to your model and will certainly enhance this area immensely.
With both engines mounted astride the vertical stabilizer, the supersonic Tu-22 Blinder was unique among modern bombers. It entered Soviet Air Force service during the height of the Cold War in 1961 and was a contemporary of the USAF’s B-58 Hustler. Though a direct comparison between the two aircraft is close to the “apples and oranges” conundrum, the Tu-22 was not as fast as the B-58, but was more versatile. In addition to its conventional and nuclear bombing capabilities, it could fly reconnaissance, anti-shipping, and radar & comm jamming (ECM) missions.
The book was first published in 2005 and this volume is a reprinted soft-cover version. Burdin and Dawes (who is also the translator) document the development, system design, operations, and combat experience of this bomber. Below are the Chapter headings which show the scope of the coverage.
Normans, the direct descendants of Viking marauders who finally settled in France and the Low Countries, were a restless bunch. Due to population pressures many of the more ambitious traveled far afield, looking for conquest or new lands to call home. Italy was one such location. Here, they established a number of kingdoms, even going so far down the “boot” of Italy to settle on the island of Sicily, where many of their descendants remain to this day.
The story of this migration and the military events associated with it is the basis of this new book from Osprey. As is typical of Osprey works, this one is carefully researched, using surviving artifacts and stories to fill in the details. I know for my own that I was quite surprised to see what a cultural crossroads this area of the world was back then, with not only local, but Muslim and even Oriental influences impacting the weapons and tactics of this warrior breed. Quite the rich stew!
The book covers the Tanks that played a key role in the battlefields of World War II and how they were used and utilized. The book goes into great detail of the tank’s role in all the major campaigns of the war, how the tank was used, the way its role evolved over the war, the different locations it was used in. It goes into great details on unit use and tactics which help you understand how it was used. The unit strengths and makeup are very interesting.
This book increased my own knowledge of tank warfare a lot and helped me understand more its role in battle and tactics of all sides in the conflict. The information shows the speed of progress made with tank design and use during this important war.
The images in the book are excellent and inspire diorama ideas for modelers.
I highly recommend this book to everyone with an interest in WWII especially in armor and tank warfare.
The Jaguar E-Type, British Motoring Masterpiece is the latest volume from automotive writer Lance Cole. Other books in his series of classic automobiles include the Bugati, Porsche 911, and the soon to be released Citroen DS.
While all three of those cars are iconic, the Jaguar E-Type still holds sway as the premier automotive design from the 1960's. An argument can be made that that design may still be the metric by which newer cars are measured.
The 11.5” x 8.5” soft cover volume from Pen and Sword books contains sixty-four pages with a myriad of photographs, drawings and profiles of the Jaguar E-type. Author Cole has divided his book on the Jaguar E-Type into:
The author presents a brief history of the development and operational career of the Messerschmitt Bf-109 series, but the main emphasis of this book is the explanation of the development of colors and markings used for these aircraft. Granted, this topic has been addressed before in many publications, and the Bf-109 has probably had more written about it than any other combat aircraft from the World War II Era.
Beginning with a brief description of the origins of the aircraft, a brief account of the development and service career is presented. Following this is a short section entitled “Camouflage, Markings, and Heraldry”, which explains how the Luftwaffe fighter groups were organized, and the color coding that was used to identify sub-groups within units. The author also explains the development of the specific colors used for overall camouflage schemes, as well as individual unit variations used for different climatic conditions.
Pen and Sword’s Car Craft Series focuses on some of the more exotic cars and covers both their history and the variants. This volume covers the iconic Porsche 911. My personal first experience with the 911 came when my roommate bought a used 911 and we tooled around in it (plus I got to drive it). Even used, it was a thrill with the acceleration of a rocket and the brakes to stop a freight train. When this book came up for review, I had to jump at it. The book is soft cover and is lavishly illustrated with pictures and drawings. One thing that makes this series of special interest to modelers is that it has two specific modeling sections. This is shown in the table of contents:
Harpia Publishing has been producing very high quality aircraft books for a while. These books are lavishly illustrated and have covered subjects from subjects covering Iraqi MiGs to Chinese aircraft to specific planes like EMB Tucano. The latest volume is Modern USMC Air Power written by Joe Copalman. This is 256 pages of soft cover wonderfulness. The first thing that hits you is that the pictures in the book are amazing pictures all in perfect focus, great flying shots and lots and lots of them. Wow!
I have included a picture of the table of contents. As you can see, there is a brief history and then it moves into the training aircraft, helicopters and all kinds of planes. The table of contents is below:
This volume on painting war gaming figures focuses on Rome’s Northern Enemies - the British, Celts, Germans and Dacians and one of the first things that struck me was how applicable this would be to all war gaming figures. The book is a complete tutorial from soup to nuts on building, modifying, basing and painting figures. A quick look at the Table of Contents shows what I mean:
