Tony Buttler was born in 1956 and joined High Duty Alloys in Redditch in 1974 as a metallurgist. For nearly 20 years he was closely involved in the testing of aluminum and titanium airframe and engine components for many of the world’s most important airplanes. It was during this timeframe that his interest in military aircraft grew into a passion. Since 1995, Tony has been a freelance aviation historian, with this book being his twenty-sixth major release. He has also written many titles for the Warpaint series of monographs as well as many articles for most of the popular historical aviation magazines.

The AH-64 Apache helicopter has served the U.S. Army since 1986 as its primary attach helicopter. During it’s time in service, the Apache has gone through a series of upgrades, and improvements to increase its combat effectiveness, as well as survivability. The Block II aircraft integrates the advanced radar targeting system, Longbow, allowing the helicopter to engage multiple targets while remaining behind cover. The APG-78 Longbow radar system is the large dome radar located above the aircraft’s rotors. In addition to this improvement, the latest version of the Block II upgrades includes new exhaust ducts, which direct the engine exhausts vertically to improve protection from infra-red targeting.

This book details combat between the Boeing B-29 Superfortress and the Nakjima Ki-44 “Tojo” in the war against Japan. The B-29s rained destruction down upon Japan daily and the Japanese were desperate to combat the large number of bombers the Americans sent at the home islands. One of Japan’s most formidable weapons was the Ki-44, Japan’s most heavily armed single seat fighter.

The book is broken down into 11 sections. The introduction discusses in brief the lead up to both designs and provides a chronology from inception until the end of the war.

Next the design and development of both types are covered. The B-29 is covered first then the Ki-44.

Master-Model produces precision brass/resin parts that will elevate your model when used as directed This time Master-Model has produced a detail set for the 1/72 P-40 E thru N models that includes brass gun barrels, external backup gun sights and pitot tube. The packaging is very good to separate and contain the tiny parts provided. The package contains a tightly folded instruction sheet on one side, on the other is a plastic bag with the parts. Each type of parts are sealed separated from the others to keep any lost to a minimum. The only fault one might find is that the dimensions for drilling the holes are in the metric system and not the English system that we use, but one can convert these to the English system without too much of a bother.

Operation Torch (initially called Operation Gymnast) was the British-United States invasion of French North Africa during the North African Campaign of the Second World War which started on 8 November 1942. The successful Allied operation has been described as a "critical turning point in the war" and laid the foundations for America’s post-war Middle East policy. Despite its important role in the war, Torch has been largely overlooked.

The Soviet Union had pressed the US and British to start operations in Europe and open a second front to reduce the pressure of German forces on the Soviet troops. While US commanders favored Operation Sledgehammer, landing in Occupied Europe as soon as possible, British commanders believed that such a course was likely to end in disaster.