Steven Spielberg's 2005 remake of War of the Worlds took the original 1953 version and upgraded the already excellent special effects using today's technology. In my opinion, the movie was okay, but the effects were excellent, and central to that were the Martians and their tripods. Pegasus Hobbies has already issued the Martians and has now followed up with this kit of the tripod. And what a kit it is!

The kit is 93 parts including an excellent base of a destroyed street and buildings. The capture cages and lenses are clear. The top of the tripod is smoky clear. All the parts are perfectly molded, with no flash and petite engraving. There is an option of building the kit with the laser arms attached as it is first seem in the movie or building it with the cages underneath the back end and the eight tentacles coming out. I chose the former for this build as I love the look of the arms/claws protruding from the top.

Chevy’s classic Corvette was first offered in a hard-top version in 1963, and that model-year’s radical shift in design style can still be seen in the generations of ‘Vettes which have since followed. The ’63 Sting Ray Coupe is Revell’s latest addition to its Snap-Tite Corvette collection, and this one surely does not disappoint young modeling hands. Camden (age 6) built this review sample in less than an hour during a visit to a local pediatric urgent care facility the night the kit arrived, and we can definitely say this was one of the best-behaved snap kits we’ve seen in a while.

The kit consists of 5 sprues of parts, the candy apple red body, the clear window insert, 4 vinyl tires, steel axles, a couple of self-tapping screws, and a sheet of peel-and-stick decals. Surface detail is both raised and recessed, as appropriate, and appears to lend itself well to those who actually wish to paint the finished product.

The Flakpanzer Gepard was a German design that began after WWII in 1955. The design and prototype stages took a very long time and the first Gepard was not deployed till 1975. The basic design had two 35mm Oerlikon cannons mounted on the outside of a turret that has two radar tracking systems. The first radar was 360 degree surveillance radar that tracked and identified targets. Once identified, the target was transferred to the tracking radar that controlled the two guns. This system allowed the two radars to work independently of each other, with the tracking radar concentrating on the target while the surveillance radar looked for other targets. The chassis was based on the Leopard MBT. The Gepard was removed from service in 2010 when it was replaced with the SysFla mobile and stationary air defense system.

Tamiya has just released a new set of figures of German Military Police that could be used to enhance any diorama setting, or even a stand alone with a building or street scene. The kit consists of two sprues, one containing the figures and the other containing the accessories which are fairly well detailed. Also included in this kit is a very good likeness of a German Shepherd dog which will add to the realism of the figures.

Quickboost, located in the Czech Republic, has produced a number of very useful resin accessories for plastic models in a number of scales, and these units (3 are included) would be welcome additions to most 1/72 scale Bf-109 kits. Many 1/72 scale kits tend to have very heavy detail on such petite items as pitot tubes, aileron hinges, pilot access steps, and a host of other small details, if these are included at all.

This accessory pack consists of three pitot tubes protected by a heavy molding on the sides. The tubes are very small, as they were on the real aircraft, and would certainly look better than those provided in most kits, which have them molded in scales closer to sewer pipes. These are worth getting if you are building a lot of Bf-109’s, and they would probably be useful on a lot of other 1/72 scale aircraft also.

Recommended.

Thanks to Quickboost and John Noack for the review sample.