Casemate Publishers presents ShipCraft 27, British Sloops and Frigates of WW2 by Les Brown from Seaforth Publishing. This long-awaited book is a ship modeler’s dream come true as a reference work on the large numbers obscure but important Royal Navy antisubmarine warships that helped turn the tide in the Battle of the Atlantic. This easy-to-digest book details each of the 17 classes of sloops and frigates used by the Royal Navy in WW2. These mostly forgotten, smaller warships focused on convoy escort duties and helped revolutionize antisubmarine warfare tactics. This book lists class history, available model kits, model accessories, many photographs, camouflage examples, line drawings and color plates of finished models – a superb reference for these plentiful ships with many possibilities for modelers.

“It all started with few maps and an innocent German rafting expedition.” (Chapter 4, page 20). The war for the Siachen glacier sounds like something from a historical fiction book. One pundit called it two bald men fighting over a comb, but Operation Meghdoot was a 36-year-long shooting war fought at the highest elevations ever (up to 22,000 feet or ~6700 meters) between two bitter, next-door neighbors with nukes fighting over the largest ice mass on Earth outside of the polar regions. Where the weather killed many times more men than the enemy, and where China was ever a threat to intervene at the top of the world. Warfare rules were rewritten for constant cold weather and elevation, and helicopters were absolutely essential. This “operation” was mostly ignored by the rest of the world, and still has very large geopolitical aftershocks. Meghdoot is Sanskrit for Cloud Messenger, an apt moniker.

Background

This book tells the story of the Grumman SA-16A Amphibian as used by the Italian Air Force after World War II. It is NOT a study of all users of the type, as the Wayne Mutza book on the Albatross, published by Shiffer in 1996, was. This book gives a very brief account of the service life of the plane, and then shifts to Italian service exclusively. It therefore fills a gap, as Mutza’s book has very little coverage of Italian service.

One feature of the book is that the text is printed side-by-side in Italian and English, but the typeset is different, which I thought made the English text a little harder to read. Another problem is that the translation from Italian to English is a little bit strange grammatically, as words like “aircrafts” appear frequently. But it is understandable, and there is a lot of information in this book that is not available elsewhere.

When Napoleon Bonaparte first began his rise to power in France in 1799, there already existed a private armed force dedicated to protecting the person of the King of France. After the French Revolution, this force became known as the Consular Guard, intended to protect French politicians – sort of a personal secret service or bodyguard force on steroids. Private armies of this nature were not at all uncommon in the 1800s, as most aristocratic rulers feared their own subjects more than hostile outside forces. In 1804, with the creation of the French Empire under Napolean’s direct rule, this private army expanded enormously, gleaning only the “best of the best” from the various armed forces of France and its allies and loyal solely to Napolean himself, rather than the nation of France. This force became globally known as the Imperial Guard.

Introduction

Another item added to Ammo by Mig Jimenez’s line of products for the modeling community is their new item, the “Long Live the Brushes” described as a soap for the cleaning and care of your brushes. From the product web page, the items description states.

“The product is capable of removing acrylic, enamel, lacquer paint residue. In just two steps you can extend the life of your brushes.

1. Moisten the brush with water and rub the hairs on the surface of the soap until it foams.
2. Once the paint residual has been removed, rinse lightly and shape the hair. We advise properly cleaning your brushes after each use and store in a protective case.”

Also, available on Ammo by Mig Jimenez’s YouTube channel is an instructional video narrated by Manuel Gil. This video can be found at: