Gabriele Esposito is an Italian student of military history with an interest in 1800s Latin America. Giuseppe Rava contributed three two-page and a smaller paintings in color of the pivotal battles of this war.

Osprey’s Campaign 342 covers the war that involved the eastern countries of South America as they joustled their own revolutions with military actions against their neighbors, setting the stage for current countries and boundaries. Like other Osprey Campaign books, this issue is 96 pages (not counting the front/back covers) –enough for a discussion on the war and its aftermath.

This book provides twelve maps of the theatre, individual battles and subsets of battles. Sixteen B&W and twelve color photographs, 28 B&W and 12 color illustrations, three Tables and a two-page Chronology compliment the text. Almost every page has some sort of visual to look at, giving a better feel for what is was like to have fought in this war.

History

The P-3 Orion was designed for use by the US Navy as a submarine hunter and replaced the Neptune. The P-3 was nearly twice as fast as the Neptune and its range increased by almost 60% over that of the P2V. The first Orion was delivered to the US Navy Squadron VP-8 in July 1962 and within six months this unit was fully equipped with P-3's. This kit is a reissue of the old Revell kit that was first released in 1965.

What’s in the Box

Upon opening the box you will find a lot of white plastic, 48 pieces, attached to parts of sprues. The detail is raised and there are many rivets, also there is a lot of flash, pin marks and some sink marks to boot. (Face it, some of us that are this old OR OLDER have some of these same issues!) The decal sheet is printed cleanly and in register and you get a 4 page fold out for instructions.

What’s Inside

This is my first exposure to this series of photo reference guides and I kind of like the format. There is a brief one page Introduction and explanation of the format- and a reasoning of why this particular volume- which ties in to Tamiya’s recent release of the P-38 F/G. From there we get right to the meat of the guide- the many photos.

Mr. Marmo gives a brief explanation of how to navigate the photo thumbnails and then you’re set free. When you click on a thumbnail, you are brought to a whole page version of it, complete with a caption explaining what you’re seeing and a credit reference for where the photo originated from.

Bottom Line Up Front

Tamiya breaks new ground with the first large production injection T-55 in 1/48 scale. Tamiya already has an impressive line of excellent 1/48 scale armor kits and this will likely prove to be one of their most popular offerings. This kit delivers everything we have come to expect from Tamiya; excellent detail, brilliant engineering and interesting subjects.

History

From the mid-1950s, the T-55 was the main tank of the Soviet Army, armies of the Warsaw Pact countries, and many others. T-55s have been involved in many of the world's armed conflicts since the later part of the 20th century. The T-55's first appearance in the West around the period of the 1950s (then the beginning of the Cold War) spurred the United Kingdom to develop a new tank gun, the Royal Ordnance L7, and the United States to develop the M60 Patton. The T-55 series remain in use by up to 50 other armies worldwide, some having received sophisticated retrofitting.

Introduction

On 1 April 1942, less than four months after the world had been stunned by the attack upon Pearl Harbor, sixteen US aircraft took to the skies to exact retribution. Their objective was not merely to attack Japan, but to bomb its capital. The raid was more successful in its moral impact on shaking the Japanese sense of invulnerability than in its physical damage to the targets. The Doolittle Raid tells the story of the preparations for the raid, descriptions of each of the 16 crews and their outcome, and the aftermath of the raid.