Russ continues to deliver bits and pieces which are, when you think of it, invaluable! Most heavy thanks to him for providing IPMS USA yet another of his great works.

This set provides metal duplicates of the original plastic landing gear for a kit which has been with us since 1959. (I have a box with the Gulfhawk kit; it proves, along with the decal sheet with manufacturing data, that this kit is just a year younger than I am!). The kit was re-released by Monogram (and later by Revell) in 1964, 1973, and 1999, both as the Gulfhawk and the standard F3F. The kit has cut-down Gulfhawk wings for both releases…to which Mike West has a replacements for the proper wingspan in resin, or you can use internet resources to cut/paste two kits to get the same result with a LOT more work!

Plus Model has provided the armor modeler with a finely cast and detailed model of a German power generator used in WWII.

A quick check on the internet found that the Plus Model generator is in fact the Breuer WG3000 (3kw) generator. This generator delivers 3000w/220v/13.6a and uses a two-cylinder horizontally-opposed four-stroke engine that makes 17hp at 1,500 rpm. It was about as large as they came that used a skid; any larger and they were mounted on a frame with wheels, to be towed. The Plus Model rendition contains 24 resin parts, a photo-etch sheet (made by Hauler) with 21 p.e. parts, and a short length of copper wire.

The parts came bubble-wrapped inside a small cardboard box, but mine had 5 pieces broken off the casting sprue. Checking the small two-sided instruction sheet, I was able to identify the parts. Only one was broken badly enough that I had to make a new piece out of some styrene strips, but this wasn’t a problem.

This is the second volume in Ampersand Publishing’s pictorial history of the Churchill heavy infantry tank. The first volume covered the gun tanks, while this second volume covers the non-gun tanks, such as flame throwers, bridge layers, flail, and armored engineering vehicles. It is thus broken down into the following chapters:

This is the first Ginter book I have had the pleasure of reading or reviewing. It is in the standard format of a softback book with card covers and is approx. 8 ½” x 11” in size. The text and photos are all printed on glossy, high quality paper.

There is a detailed history of the development of the PB2Y, followed by an in-depth operational history. This operational history includes details of many combat missions. High quality black and white photos are present on every page. There are also drawings and pages reproduced from technical manuals.

After the technical development section, the operational history is broken down into sections on the US Navy, the Naval Transport Service, service as an “Admiral’s Barge,” and the RAF. There are even a few pages dedicated to the Coronado’s Seaplane Tenders.

Dutch Decal has been producing decals of all aircraft from the Dutch Air Forces. The company started in 1986 and the decals that were produced caught on mainly for their quality and uniqueness and, according to Dutch Decal, their “sheets are silk screen printed with English instructions often in colour and if possible with photographs alongside the illustrations”.

This particular decal sheet was designed for Wingscale’s B-25, but due to lots of political mayhem (which I won’t get into), a new company called HK Models produced the B-25J kit. The decals will still work with this kit due to the fact that the dimensions have not changed.