Coastal Kits is based in Lancashire, UK, and began marketing their own range of display bases at the end of 2012. Since that time, their business has grown and concentrates almost exclusively on printed display bases for just about any type of model you ever wanted to build in just about any scale. Looking thru the offerings on their website is almost overwhelming there are so many choices, and they will even custom-make bases.

The display bases are manufactured from 3mm Foamex board, which feels like a rigid mousepad. The material is basically a waterproof plastic, with a printed display on one side. The pre-printed image is a high-quality image on a laminated, wipeable matt vinyl surface which, according to Coastal Kits will not raise or bubble like it was printed on paper.

This book describes Exercise Tiger, the rehearsal for the American D-Day landings on Utah Beach in Normandy. The training exercise occurred on the Devon and Dorset coasts of England around the village of Slapton Sands on April 27, 1944. Almost 1000 American soldiers and sailors died during the exercise, which was later covered up by officials embarrassed by the fiasco.

This book describes the effort of author Ken Small to uncover the truth about the deaths of the soldiers and sailors and to ensure their sacrifice would never be forgotten. First published in 1988, the book has been updated and re-published in 2018.

Dora Wings is a relatively new company with a number of low-pressure injection mold releases. I contacted them and we were fortunate to receive two new kits - a P-63E King Cobra (reviewed elsewhere on this site) and the iconic Gee Bee R2 racer. There’s plenty of history to be found regarding this little bumblebee of an airplane - maximum sized engine stuffed into the smallest possible airframe - so let’s get right to the build.

Kit contents include a very nicely detailed P&W Wasp radial, a very complete cockpit section (most of which becomes invisible under the tiny canopy) and a sheet of crisp p/e detail. A single sheet, 4 sided color instruction sheet includes a painting guide, and a sheet of masking media is included to allow you to recreate the scalloped paint scheme.

Thanks to Casemate Publishing for the review copy!

From Masterpiece Models Web Site, the back story is:

XP-1937 Coastal Reconnaissance – In 2115 World War IV broke out over the last natural resources. The Earth was divided into three major Confederations: The United Alliance of the Americas, the Euro/Siberian Alliance, and the Middle Asian/African Consortium.

2121 marked a turning point in the War when shoreline installations across the globe, both military and civilian, fell under an onslaught of terrifying proportions. From out of the sea came machines so unearthly in their aspect that even the brightest scientists could only guess that they must be extraterrestrial in origin. They were wrong. The XP-1937 Naval CRABS were the front runners of a New Faction that would bring the Confederations to their knees.

XP-1937 Coastal Reconnaissance, Attack and Battery, Scout Specifications