The Eduard OVERTREE and Weekend Edition kits are really nice kits, but I think they benefit from having the pre-painted photo etch in the model. I personally love the pre-painted photo-etch. There is detail printed on them that I could never be able to replicate with a paint brush.

Packaged in the typical resealable package with a card stock protective backing is one fret of pre-painted PE. This single fret contains many essential interior parts but the biggest impact would have to be from the seatbelts, shoulder harness, and the instrument panel. Besides these key parts, there are photo etch deflectors for the engine exhausts, as well as, some other panels and rudder pedals. These parts are all important. There are oil cooler faces as well. Personally, I don’t use them as I like the way that the kit parts look, but that is up to the modeler.

When Eduard released its first 1/72 MiG-21MF kit last summer, it continued its recent trend of splitting the decals into two separate sheets, one with the unique markings for the aircraft depicted in the kit, the other being a full sheet of stencils. This method not only simplifies the decal printing process when Eduard decides to release additional boxings of the kit with new markings, but it also allows Eduard to release the stencil sheet as a stand-alone decal sheet.

Osprey Publishing continues to expand its “Combat Aircraft” series, this time with an installment on the B-25 Mitchel Units in the CBI. Like all the other books in this series, you can expect lots of period pictures, color profiles highlighting markings and main camouflages with excellent and detailed research.

The book is broken down in chronological order, which sort of follows a geographical order as the priorities in the CBI front shifted between India, Burma, and China.

These are the chapters and subsections on the book:

Hauler produces photo-etched and resin upgrade sets for armored fighting vehicles (AFVs), airplanes, cars, railway vehicles, and dioramas. They also produce a few resin kits. Their products are in most of the common scale sizes, 1/72, 1/48, and 1/35, but they also produce a number of other items in common railroad hobbyist scales.

This diorama accessory is a US Army Field Safe. The safe itself is a resin box, with 3 additional pieces of resin representing the combination dial, door handle, and the actual door with “US” stamped on the front. There is a small photoetch sheet, which contains six pieces of photo-etch that will make up the inside shelves for the safe. A simple instruction sheet is included too.

Thanks to Casemate Publishing & IPMSUSA for the review copy!

This book is also available in a hardback version (302 pages) priced at $55.00.

Casemate Publishers has reprinted a definitive review of the so-called “Treaty Cruisers” by Leo Marriot. The author has a long list of military books to his credit, focusing on WW2 ground actions and WW2 to modern naval subjects, including this title. He is known for an excellent book on the Titanic and The Universe, with illustrated views from the Hubble Space Telescope.

You get a 9.25 X 6 inches size paperback book with three Parts, 14 Chapters and four Appendices. Although the covers have a red tint, the book is completely B&W (no color) inside. The small print text is interspersed with B&W photos of ships, most of which are seen elsewhere, but there are a few rare ones. There are also small line drawings of profiles of ships. But mostly, this book is crammed full of text.