What's New

Review Author
Phillip Cavender
Published on
Company
ICM
Scale
1/24
MSRP
$49.99

Introduction

Appearing on the market August 2020 is ICM’s rebox of their Model T 1913 Speedster introduced in 2018 with updated parts and the addition of a sprue containing two sports car drivers. Known for their detail, this Ukrainian based plastic model kit manufacturer has been producing highly detailed kits since 2003 with exports to several markets including North America.

Review Author
Michael Novosad
Published on
Company
Quickboost
Scale
1/48
MSRP
$8.99

Background from Wikipedia

The Hawker Hurricane is a British single-seat fighter aircraft of the 1930s–40s that was designed and predominantly built by Hawker Aircraft Ltd. for service with the Royal Air Force (RAF). It was overshadowed in the public consciousness by the Supermarine Spitfire's role during the Battle of Britain in 1940, but the Hurricane inflicted 60 per cent of the losses sustained by the Luftwaffe in the engagement, and fought in all the major theatres of the Second World War.

The Hurricane was developed through several versions, into bomber-interceptors, fighter-bombers, and ground support aircraft as well as fighters. Versions designed for the Royal Navy known as the Sea Hurricane had modifications enabling operation from ships. Some were converted as catapult-launched convoy escorts. By the end of production in July 1944, 14,487 Hurricanes had been completed in Britain, Canada, Belgium and Yugoslavia.

Book Author(s)
Robert Panek and Krzystof Wotowski
Review Author
Paul Mahoney
Published on
Company
Mushroom Model Publications - MMP Books
MSRP
$11.99

Upon opening the narrow, softcover book, one is immediately presented with several pages of scale plans (in 1/72 and 1/48). No introductory history or anything like that, just right into the plans. This is followed by about 15 pages of photos, interspersed with snippets from the original aircraft manual. While there is no body of text, each photo has a generous caption. The wartime photos show several aircraft on different fronts, and not only show some great details, but give a sense of the conditions in which these aircraft operated. There are also several pages of drawings from the technical manual (augmented by photos) showing many of the cockpit details. The last several pages consist of color photos of the Hs 126’s engine (from a museum), a color rendition of the instrument panel, and some nicely-done color profiles. These profiles are all the same aircraft, a winter-whitewashed aircraft operating in Russa, ca 1941/42.

Book Author(s)
John Fairley
Review Author
Dick Montgomery
Published on
Company
Pen & Sword
MSRP
$42.95

Jacket Information

Barely a decade passed from the Wright Brothers’ first powered flight to aircraft becoming lethal instruments of war. The Royal Flying Corps and Royal Naval Air Service took off in the very early days of The Great War and captured the public’s imagination and admiration.

Sydney and Richard Carline happened to be both pilots and artists as was Frenchman Henri Farre. Their works inspired celebrated painters like Sir John Lavery who took to the skies in an airship in the First World War. Feeding on the demand for works depicting this new dimension of warfighting, a new genre of art was born which has remained popular ever since.

Book Author(s)
Alan Ranger
Review Author
Phillip Cavender
Published on
Company
Mushroom Model Publications - MMP Books
MSRP
$25.00

Camera On 22 Krupp Protze Lorry, is number 22 in the “Camera On” series published by MMPBooks/Stratus. The author, Alan Ranger, has written several books in this series with subjects such as “Sd. Kfz.7 Mittlerer Zugkraftwagen 7T Vol.2”, “German Horse Power”, and “The Einheits-Diesel WW2 German Trucks” and numerous others relating to WWII.

Book Author(s)
Robert Jackson and Lynn Ritger
Review Author
James Kelley
Published on
Company
Helion & Company
MSRP
$26.95

Robert Jackson is the author of over eighty books on military, aviation, naval and scientific subjects. He was defense and science correspondent for a major British newspaper publishing group. Among the other books he has compiled for Pen & Sword are Bf-109 in the FlightCraft series and for TankCraft he has written extensively on the T-34, the Panzer I and II, the Centurion and Chieftain Main Battle Tanks as well as the Russian T54/55. 200 color and b/w illustrations

Book Author(s)
Dr. Dewald Venter
Review Author
Michael Reeves
Published on
Company
Helion & Company
MSRP
$29.95

From the publisher’s website:

During the Cold War, Africa became a prime location for proxy wars between the East and the West. Against the backdrop of a steep rise in liberation movements backed by Eastern Bloc communist countries such as Cuba and the Soviet Union, southern Africa saw one of the most intense wars ever fought on the continent...

South African Armour: A history of necessity and innovation, takes an in-depth look at 13 iconic South African armoured vehicles. The development of each vehicle is rolled out in the form of a breakdown of their main features, layout and design, equipment, capabilities, variants and service experiences. Illustrated by over 100 photographs and more than two dozen custom-drawn colour profiles, this volume provides an exclusive and indispensable source of reference.

Book Author(s)
Paul Villatoux, Xavier Aiolfi
Review Author
Bill O'Malley
Published on
Company
Casemate UK
MSRP
$37.95

This book vividly describes life in Hitler’s Führerbunker below the German Reich’s Chancelleries as the Soviet Red Army closes in on Berlin at the end of WWII. Two French officers secretly entered the bunkers in November 1945 and gathered hundreds of documents that describe the living conditions and actions of the bunker’s inhabitants at the end of WWII. These documents form the basis for this book.

Führerbunker is divided into chapters that chronologically describe the last few months of Germany’s Reich at the end of WWII. Each chapter contains written text, sidebar narratives with first-person accounts, B&W and color photos with descriptive captions, photos of historical documents, and color illustrations. The chapters are:

Prologue: Berlin 1945

The opening chapter describes the chaos and devastation following the bloody assault on Berlin by the Red Army.

Book Author(s)
Bojan Dimitrijevic and Milan Micevski
Review Author
Frank Landrus
Published on
Company
Helion & Company
MSRP
$29.95

Helion is a UK based company that produces books on many aspects of Military History from the Late Medieval period through to the present day. Helion was established in 1996, and since then they have published almost 1,200 books, with 100 or more new titles coming out every year, for readers around the world. Helion’s sixth book in the Europe @ War series is a square back soft cover includes 80 gloss paper pages. This has become a popular series and more books in the Europe @ War series are planned for 2021.

Review Author
Rob Booth
Published on
Company
Scale Aircraft Conversions
Scale
1/72
MSRP
$11.95

Scale Aircraft Conversions has produced replacement gear for the Academy 1/72 scale F/A-18 E/F/G Super Hornet kit. The white metal replacements are a clean drop-in for the kit plastic parts. The supplied items include two main gear struts, and one nose gear strut with a separate oleo scissor and retraction struts. Some other SAC packages include replacement wheels, as well, but not the case here. You will need to use the Academy or other after-market wheels for your build.

A side by side evaluation (see photos) indicates an identical replacement that should provide a greater strength assembly with a significantly improved weight capacity and abuse tolerance. In some cases where original equipment was left in a natural metal finish, painting may not be necessary. As always, check your reference photos

Highly recommended.

Thanks to the IPMS Reviewer Corps and Scale Aircraft Conversions for the opportunity to review this item.