MMP was founded in 1996 by Roger Wallsgrove, to publish "Mushroom Model Magazine". This quarterly modelling magazine was developed from "Mushroom Monthly”, a club newsletter which ran from 1985 to 1995, achieving a world-wide reputation for quality articles, fearless and honest reviews, and a great sense of humor. From 1997 the magazine was produced in collaboration with Robert Peczkowski and Artur Juszczak (Stratus), which meant a big leap in print quality and design. MMP expanded into book publication in 1999, and since then we have built up a list of books on aircraft and aviation, naval, military vehicles, and military history.

ICM has released a set of the four S.W.A.T. fighters that were previously released separately.

In the box is:

• 8 x light grey sprues
• 4 x clear sprue
• 4 x instruction sheets

While you get 8 sprues, you also get plenty of unused (spare) parts as four are the same which is for the weapons and accessories for each figure.

All the sprues are extremely well molded with no little flash and great detail.

Construction

The four figures have separate instruction sheets, and each has several options such as helmets, weapons etc.

The construction of each is very easy and they assemble very well. You do need to do a little filling on some of the arm joints but its minimal.

You also must remember if you use the glasses supplied over their eyes these must be installed before the helmets are attached.

I really enjoyed building these and they look great as a team of individually.

Helion produces books on many aspects of Military History from the Late Medieval period through to the present day. Helion was established in 1996, and since then they have published almost 1,200 books, with 100 or more new titles coming out every year. The 'Africa@War' series covers African military history since 1945.

Peter Baxter is an author, amateur historian and heritage travel guide. Born in Kenya and educated in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), he has lived and traveled over much of southern and central Africa. Peter lives in Oregon, USA. His interests include British Imperial history in Africa and the East Africa campaign of the First World War in particular. He is the author of Pen and Sword's Gandhi, Smuts and Race in the British Empire. You can find out more at peterbaxterafrica.com

Master Model is a scale model metal detailing parts manufacturer located in Poland. Their lines include exquisitely detailed photo-etched and white metal replacement parts for aircraft and ships in the most commonly produced scales.

This Master Model set provides a huge leap over any of the injected molded parts available on any 1/72 kit. Many of the older kits didn’t even include a pitot tube. Those kits that do offer a pitot tube will be one that is over-scale due to the limits of injection modeling, not to mention successfully removing the sprue attachment points.

Following directly on the heels of the release of their truly lovely Gloster Gladiator biplane fighter in 1/32^nd scale, ICM has released a figure set to create an instant diorama with the aircraft. Consisting of two pilots, clearly fresh from a flight, and a ground officer taking notes, the figures create a lovely tableau straight from the box. I suspect they’re discussing about exactly who shot down that last Italian fighter that day.

Assembly of these figures is quite straight-forward, as they have little equipment or clutter associated with them. Both pilots have nicely molded separate life vests as well as oxygen masks along with the hoses. About the only modification you may need to make is to bend the hoses a bit to make them sit more naturally. It was unnecessary to use any filler on any of these figures.