This well-researched book, The Battle for Grozny Volume 1, is part of the Europe at War Series, which contains 46 titles to date. The author, Efram Sandler was born in the former Soviet Union and is a former combat veteran of the Israeli Defense Force Armored Corp. He has authored or co-authored eight books of this amazing series.

In the mid-1990s, the south-central region of the former Soviet Union was in turmoil. The Republic of Ichkeria had declared independence and influence from Chechnya was growing stronger. The Kremlin and Boris Yeltsin, Russian President from 1991-1999, grew increasingly concerned over controlling oil and gas pipelines, which Dzhokhar Dudadev, leader of Chechen opposition, had seized. Yeltsin eventually launched a large-scale military operation on December 9, 1994.

This 27^th publication of the ‘Europe at War’ series was of particular interest to me personally. I lived in northern Germany in the years leading up to and including the Fall of the Berlin Wall and had many direct encounters – most of them not good – with East German authorities.

Andrew Long of Great Britain is a military history researcher. His interest in the Cold War begin with a trip to West Berlin in 1986 (perhaps he and I crossed paths and didn’t even know it!). He traveled through Check Point Charlie to visit East Berlin. Andrew makes sense of this very complex period of history by intertwining stories of politics, ideology, personalities, technology and geography. He has also written Cold War Berlin: An Island City, Volumes 1 & 2 as well as ‘Secrets of the Cold War’.

A new set of 3D printed F-16 LAU-129 Missile Launcher in 1/48^th scale (4 pieces) is provided by Fab Scale for the Tamiya kit. This is a drop-in replacement for the Tamiya kit for launchers that hold AIM-9 Sidewinders or AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles.

Note: There is no official website for Fab Scale, a business card was inside the box referencing Scalemates.com

In The Package & Product Notes

The sample review I received came in a small plastic box wrapped in a Ziploc bag and surrounded by foam.

There are four (4) 3D printed LAU-129 missile launchers printed with pink salmon colored resin. These parts can replace C28 & C29 from the Tamiya kit.

The printed resolution of the missile launcher is amazing. There is a lot of tiny detail throughout the entire part and some careful painting and contrast weathering will make them pop.

A new 3D printed F-16 Exhaust Nozzle set in 1/48^th scale is provided by Fab Scale as drop-in replacements for the Tamiya kit (General Electric F110 engine).

Note: There is no official website for Fab Scale at the time of this review, but a few foreign hobby websites were selling the exhaust nozzle.

In The Package & Product Notes

The sample review came in a small cardboard box and parts are individually wrapped in Ziploc bags.

There are three (3) parts of this exhaust nozzle set printed with pink salmon colored resin. These parts replace kit parts A18, H12 & H3. The printed resolution of the exhaust nozzle is very fine with no build up layers and the print quality is excellent.

Review Process

I started by separating the parts from its base by using side-cutting nippers. Next, wet sanding removed the remaining support nubs.

TheSaab 35 Draken is the latest publication from Duke Hawkins Books and is the thirty-first volume of a series of books that they have recently published highlighting modern aircraft. This series got its start with The Sepecat Jaguar in July 2017 and has been quite successful. There is also a special limited edition on the Belgian Air Force F-16 and on the Juan Carlos I Aircraft Carrier. This series of publications fall under the name of Duke Hawkins, but it is not clear exactly who Duke Hawkins is. If you check out other retail sites on this series, you can findRobert Pied and Nicolas Deboeck listed as authors, but there is not much additional information on them. One of the bylines goes like this: