Kagero brings us another of their “Camouflage & Decals” series books, this time showcasing the Republic P-47D Bubbletop Thunderbolt. There is no text, other than a brief caption of each aircraft and the unit/pilot assigned.

The color profiles are mostly pretty exciting and colorful, with many featuring gorgeous nose art of the time. This makes the book a helpful resource for the modeler, if you have the correct decals in your files.

Speaking of decals...the single sheet included provides markings for two aircraft, each in 1/48 and 1/72 scale. They appear to be in perfect register, but there is no indication of who produced the sheet. I suspect it’s from Kagero’s in-house decal shop. One of the least inspired aircraft in the book makes the sheet, “Lonesome Lee”, a P-47D-25-RE of the 359th Fighter group, flown by CPT James B. Griswold. A boring, dark gray over light gray scheme. Interesting that it’s dark gray instead of O.D., if the color profile is to be believed.

The second aircraft represented on the sheet is “Stinky”, P-47D-30-RA of the 365th Fighter Squadron, 358th FG, 9th AF, flown by Lt. Don Volkmer. This scheme is very colorful and exciting, but the book doesn’t contain a profile of it. It’s not in the book! I had to do some quick research to find out about it, and it’s apparently a popular subject in the R/C Aircraft community. I have included a picture of it, since you won’t find it in the book.

Despite the books’ title, several of the featured profiles are P-47Ms and P-47Ns. Not a deal-breaker, but it does make the title a slight misnomer.

All in all, this is a nice book to have in your collection, especially if you enjoy artists’ color profiles of aircraft. Don’t buy it for the decal sheet, which is a letdown in my opinion. Recommended with the above-mentioned caveats. My thanks and gratitude go to IPMS/USA, Casemate Publishers, and Kagero Publishing for the review sample.