I know what you’re thinking, does the world need another P-51 Mustang model? In the case of the ARMA P-51B kit the answer is YES! If you love the Mustang like I do, you must build one of these kits. ARMA has created detail fidelity in this scale that I’ve not seen in scales much larger. The cockpit is a model in itself and includes decals for all the placards. Capping it are standard canopy and Malcom hoods that allow open or closed positions and the rails for Malcolm hood are included, a feature no P-51B model I'm aware of has ever done.

Decals options are provided for four aircraft including “Old Crow” one of Clarence “Bud” Andersons early Mustangs. One additional scheme is provided in the instructions for Captain John Pugh's “Geronimo”, with a checked nose that was later removed. Two frames of grey plastic hold all the parts of the kit.

AMMO by Mig has released a new line of acrylic paints for railroad modelers called the Rail Center. There are 41 railroad specific colors in the series, with twelve box sets:

• Ammo.R-1000 Spanish Renfe Locomotives
• Ammo.R-1001 Dutch Locomotives
• Ammo.R-1002 British Locomotives
• Ammo.R-1003 German DB Locomotives
• Ammo.R-1004 German DR Locomotives
• Ammo.R-1005 Germany DRG-DB Steam Locomotives
• Ammo.R-1006 Via Rail Canada Locomotives
• Ammo.R-1007 Classic American Railroad Companies – Locomotives Vol. 1
• Ammo.R-1008 Classic American Railroad Companies – Locomotives Vol. 2
• Ammo.R-1009 British Freight Cars
• Ammo.R-1010 American Freight Cars
• Ammo.R-1011 German Freight Cars

The paints depart from the familiar Ammo by Mig 17ml eye drop containers and are packaged in 15ml cylinders with stirring balls.

My modeling experience detailing aircraft cockpits includes:

• Laboring over kit-supplied embossed instrument panels that need to be painted by hand and/or dry brushed;
• Giving in to using instrument decals, either the kit-supplied panels or individual gauge decals; or
• Using photo-etched panels backed by film pieces with gauge faces that need to be back painted white and sandwiched behind the metal fronts.

While the latter is the most realistic of the aforementioned methods, none provide the realism of the 3D printed panels that are now coming to market.

Being unfamiliar with these aftermarket products, I was anxious to get a close look at one. The one I was fortunate enough to evaluate is produced by Red Fox Studios, a company in Hungary, for the new Hasegawa 1/48-scale F-22 Raptor kit. (See Photo 1).

The panels are composed of acrylic plastic with both raised and recessed details and are printed in color.

Ian Baxter is a prolific author and has an impressive collection of photographs, many unpublished previously. The book follows the familiar Images of War format with brief introductions for each chapter followed by a lot of photographs to tell the story. At first, I was hesitant to review this book as a lot has been written about this period of well-documented evil that was the Nazi era. However, I wanted to read and see Ian Baxter’s perspective on Heinrich Himmler, the Architect of the Holocaust.

Ian Baxter did not disappoint, and his opening paragraph sums up the book,

Introduction

The Dassault Super Étendard, which became the Super Étendard Modernisé in due course, had a remarkable career. It was a humble aircraft that was often faced with thankless and difficult tasks. There was no excessive power in this aircraft, but simply a remarkable versatility that made it the backbone of French carrier aviation for 40 years. Solid, reliable, well-designed, and adaptable, the Super Étendard was an aircraft that France regularly upgraded, enabling it to maintain its rank with increasingly sophisticated equipment and armaments. It gained notoriety for its role in anti-ship missions flown by Argentinian pilots, but paradoxically, France never used it in combat in this role. On the other hand, the aircraft was extensively used as a bomber in numerous wars, in a variety of places, including Lebanon, Syria, Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan. With over 160 images, this book looks at the history of the Super Étendard and the impact it had on aviation.

This is a new tool that was added to UMM-USA’s line of modeling tools this fall. The tool consists of a thin double-edged saw blade and black plastic handle. It is intended to be used with resin parts and thin styrene.

The tool is used similar to a full-sized keyhole saw. While it can be used like a standard saw, cutting from the edge in, its principal use is to cut a hole inside a part. I experimented by drawing out a rectangular panel on scrap styrene, drilling pilot holes at each corner and then using the saw to cut from hole to hole, creating a rectangular opening. The corners were then cut out using a sharp Xacto knife.

This is the eighth printing of this book detailing the Battle of Normandy. The book is divided into an introduction, 21 sections, a glossary and a comparative rank section at the end. The first section is dedicated to the table of organization of the regiments that participated in the battle. This is followed by a description of the principal and ancillary vehicles in battle. Next section is dedicated to the units involved, and describes each unit participating in the events. This section is divided in the units of the SS and Heer in combat. A small section talks about the retreat of the German forces in the area after the Battle of the Fallaise Pocket, followed by another section describing what is left of the battle. The book ends with a glossary and a comparative rank table.

Ammo’s “Quake Crackle Creator Textures” are a line of thick acrylic paints formulated to dry with cracked surfaces in order to simulate terrain such as dried mud or cracked pavement. Quake is available in five colors: Crackle Base (white), Old Blacktop (black), Scorched Sand (tan), Baked Earth (brown), and Dry Season Clay (red-brown). I’ve tried the first three colors in this review. The product comes in 40ml plastic bottles. The screw-caps are nearly as wide as the bottles and have prominent ridges, so if you get paint on the threads, you can still get the bottles open.

This is a great kit! If you typically model in 1/72nd scale this will make a fine addition to a diorama or vignette involving any mid 1950's to current scenes. Assembly is straight forward with minimal effort, paints up nice and more than looks the part of an airfield mobile electric truck. You may wish to buy several copies....

This release from ICM Holding of an airfield mobile electric truck, the APA-50M, is a welcome addition to their 1/72nd line of soft skinned vehicles. Detail has not been sacrificed but it has been simplified. (No complete engine, for instance.) The engine (lower portion only), air tanks, power take-off, drive shafts, suspension and axles are all individual parts. Which is where assembly begins.

Many enthusiasts dream of finding a Bugatti or a Bentley in a barn or a long disused building. In reality, such finds are more likely to be an Austin 7, Ford Popular or a Mini. This book is stuffed with these so called “barn finds”. The author has tried to find out the background to the abandonment and the previous history of the “as found” car when it was in regular use. Why was it put away and apparently forgotten?

Brengun continues to expand its line of accessories this time with a resin set for the air-to-air refueling system known as the “Buddy Tank”. This set represent the “Buddy Tank” used in A-1, A-4, A-6, A-7, and S-3 airplanes. Given that some of those airplanes were exported, this ordinance was also exported to many countries.

This set is cast in grey resin, free of bubbles and surface imperfections. There are a total of 12 parts, some of which are small and delicate.

The cast plugs are of reasonable size and the attachment points are minuscule for all the small parts, only the two larger part (which represent the fuel tank) have medium to large attachment points.

Casemate Publishers has released a book on the Hungarian Armored Car Csaba 39/40M.

The book is organized as follows.

• Introduction
• Straussler and his designs
• Design and development of the Csaba armored car
• Production
• Armored car units, organization
• Operational History
• Camouflage and Markings
• Bibliography

The flow of the book is chronological by the nature of how it was written, starting with the design of the vehicle by Nicholas Straussler (while living in the United Kingdom) and quickly moves on the production, units organization and operational history with the Hungarian Army.

There are some color profiles which highlight the different camouflage schemes used by the Hungarian Army during the early years of World War 2, plus all the different national markings used in the pre-Barbarossa era..

Kinetic Models is expanding its line of F-104 Starfighters. Having released the late markings already (-G, -J, -S, including some trainers) they are adding to their line the early variants: -A and -C.

The kit arrives in a large sturdy box (where you can comfortably keep the model in between sessions while you are working on it) with a total of 4 sprues -one molded in clear- and a small photoetch fret. There is a brand-new sprue for the fuselage and the wings. Two of the sprues have already been released as part of their latter markings boxings. This means you get extra parts, like ejection seats, a radar set and a few other details for the spare box.

AMMO by Mig has recently started a reference guide line “Visual Modelers Guide”. This is the second installment on the line and is devoted to the IA 58 “Pucara”. The release of this book is matched with the 1/48 Kinetic Pucara and given that the Pucara reference guide material is pretty succinct, this book is a God-send, even more when considering the very affordable price of it (other reference materials for this airplane -being out of print- cost at least 5 times if not 10 times the price).

This is an amazingly detailed book authored by a Polish Ph.D. in Law, living in Japan, writing about Japanese advances in the eastern Indian Ocean. As if that isn’t intriguing enough, author Michał A. Piegzik covers a little known (at least to most Americans) subject in a much larger backdrop of Allied defeats in the early Pacific War, focusing on ABDA (American, British, Dutch, Australian) forces as they reeled from Japanese attacks in Thailand, Hong Kong, Singapore, Dutch East Indies, the Philippines, Java, and Burma.

This is the second Arma Hobby kit that I have been fortunate to review, and once again, the company has delivered a wonderful representation of a 1/72 scale aircraft, this time, the P-39Q Airacobra. Arma Hobby produces some of the finest detailed kits that I have seen in some 50 years of modeling. I would highly recommend this kit to anyone who wants to add a model of the final variant of the Airacobra to their collection.

The book covers the complete history of De Havilland Canada Civil Aircraft production form the amazingly successful DHC-2 Beaver to the DHC-8-400. These groundbreaking aircraft are all covered in this book in in-depth and informative detail.

This is a very highly illustrated book with many great photos of all the variants of each aircraft.

The history, development and continued use of many of this outstanding aircraft are very well covered in this book and I must say I did read the whole book in one evening and wished it was longer even thou it did not need to be.

I personally worked on the several aircraft in the Dash 7 and Dash 8 series on interior monuments. So, this book is a great addition to my library.

I recommend this book to everyone with an interest in Commercial Aircraft and for modelers. After reading this book I look forward to adding more of this series to my library.

Red Army Auxiliary Armored Vehicles 1930-1945 is a very well researched and written book on a relatively unknown subject. With less fanfare than the armored combat vehicles that did the actual fighting, these are the Russian vehicles in support and auxiliary service that made a lot of the fighting possible. This book is a departure from the usual Images of War format. Rather than a brief summary of the chapter to come with a dizzying number of great photographs, the first 61 pages of this 152-page book is all text with detailed footnotes. The photographic sections are broken into 1930-1940 and 1941-1945.

The Columbian Ministerio de Defensa Nacional (Ministry of Defence) oversees the Fuerzas Militares de Columbia (Military Forces of Colombia) air forces among the most powerful in Latin America, comprising of four branches: the Fuerza Aérea Colombiana (FAC -Colombian Air Force), Armada Nacional de la República de Colombia (ARC - Colombian National Navy), Ejército Nacional de Colombia (EJC - Colombian National Army) and Policía Nacional de Colombia (PNC - National Police of Colombia). Combined, the air divisions are all very powerful, and contribute to the biggest combined aviation force in the world. Columbian air power traces its roots back over a century. Air Forces of Latin America – Columbia is the fifth volume in this series and does a great job highlighting this impressive air power.

Summary

The kit builds up into a nice replica of the Jagdpanther Ausf G1. And while it has some odd points the overall look is spot on. The model is well detailed, but one must watch for option call-outs for the different vehicles. The parts layout and build sequence is simple and straight forward.

Background

The Jagdpanther G-1 was a dedicated tank destroyer based on the chassis of the Panther Ausf A. Armed with the formidable 88mm Pak 43 anti-tank gun, it first entered service in early 1944. Serving on both the Western and Eastern fronts, the Jagdpanther was capable of disabling any tank of the period, up to and including the heavily armed and armored Soviet IS-2. However, like many German innovations, it was too little, too late. With only 415 Jagdpanthers produced by the end of the war it appeared in too few numbers to make a difference in the course of the war.

The history of Iraq is largely a history of civilization and Iraq today largely corresponds with the territory of ancient Mesopotamia. Skipping ahead several millennia and modern-day Iraq largely corresponds with the Ottoman Wilayets (administrative divisions of the Ottoman Empire) of the Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra Provinces. The British influence dates after World War I and held sway, particularly with weapons and doctrine through the Tammuz Revolution of 1958. The Ba’ath Party came to power in 1969 with Saddam Hussein as the Vice-Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council, second only to Major General Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr.

Starfighter’s latest release is their sixth Ford GT decal sheet and features the four Ford GT-40 Mk. II factory entries from the 1966 12 Hours of Sebring. The sheet’s instructions state that the decals will fit on any 1/24 or 1/25 scale plastic or resin Ford GT Mk. II kit, and include PPG catalog number color callouts, plus some individual information to model each of the four cars.

I opted to use the Revell (ex-Fujimi) kit of the #98 GT-40 whose features included the “Gurney bubble” in the right door upper panel which allowed the 6’4” Gurney headroom in the car. Without a little plastic surgery to remove the bubble, that limited my choice of decals to the #2 Shelby American car or the #4 Holman-Moody one. I opted for #4.

All four Ford GT entries were painted in standard Ford factory colors….red, blue, white, and this one, painted Sauterne Gold (PPG43433), and all had black anti-glare noses. I used Tamiya X-31 Titanium Gold to approximate the Sauterne Gold.

The 1/48 scale Hobby Boss A-10 was a very welcoming kit when it was first released in 2007. The A-10C represents the third release, after the A-10A and N/AW A-10 two-seater, of this kit and outdoes the older Monogram and Tamiya kits in every way!

The Hobby Boss Thunderbolt II arrived packed beautifully and well protected as is standard for this Chinese model company. No more than two sprues were contained within their own plastic bags, with some delicate parts being wrapped in a cellophane material. The box art showed a great photo of the first painting option.

One of the highlights were the three decal sheets provided and the painting options offered. The instruction manual was Hobby Boss’s standard black and white booklet, with clear steps proceeding through the build. The painting and decaling instruction sheets were large, colorful and glossy. A great addition was that the color charts included six different paint manufacturers color recommendations – Nice!!!

Mortons Media Group was established in the 19th century and has been producing book-length publications since the early 2000s. The company established a dedicated books division in 2019 and Mortons Books has already earned a reputation for publishing high-quality titles by authors who are true experts in their field. For the best reads on rail, aviation, nostalgia and history, look no further. This book is part of their imprint: Tempest Books addresses all aspects of aviation history are covered in authoritative detail. The aviators and aircraft of the Second World War are profiled by our titles alongside more modern fighters, bombers, reconnaissance aircraft and transports. 'Secret projects' and experimental designs are also an important part of the Tempest Books portfolio.

The Unimog 404, also called the Unimog S and Unimog 404S, was developed by Mercedes Benz from 1955 to 1980. Unimog (taken from UNIversal Motor Gerät, or universal power unit) is a small, capable, 1.5 ton offroad truck that reached a production number of 36,000 for the German military during the Cold War. The Unimog 404 could be driven in either 2x4 or 4x4 mode, being at home in the outdoors or cruising up to 60 km/hr on paved surfaces. The Unimog has a folding canvas roof with a frame and canvas cover for the cargo area. Despite its German origins, the first Unimog 404s were produced for the French Army who wanted the spare wheel moved from the cargo bed to an undercarriage location on a newly designed down swept frame to provide more space for troops and cargo.