History

Using the hull from a Sho’t (itself a modified Centurion), the Puma CEV is a heavily armored combat engineering vehicle and armored personnel carrier used by the IDF since the 1990´s. With a top speed of 45 km/h, the Puma can carry a crew of up to eight people. It has a variety of uses including mine clearing equipment (including the Carpet system) and bridging capabilities. It is armed with three 7.62mm FN MAG machine guns, smoke grenade launchers, and a 60mm mortar.

The Kit

Inside the durable cardboard box are seventeen olive green sprues, four brown sprues with individual track links, an upper and lower hull, two clear sprues, 24 vinyl tires, a PE fret, and a nicely detailed decal sheet. The kit only features one scheme that uses only two of the decals, so good references are a must to get the most out of the kit.

This third volume of Claringbould’s aircraft profiles, the first of Allied aircraft, highlights the Douglas A-20 Havoc (Boston to the Commonwealth forces). The A-20, and its stablemate the B-25, were the two-workhorse low level attack aircraft of the US Fifth Air Force in the Southwest Pacific.

Kagero Publishing, from Poland, is one of the major military history publishing houses. Since 1998, when Kagero started publishing in English, over 600 titles have been produced at a pace of 60 per year or more. Topics focus on specific planes, armor and ships, along with a bevy of focused topics, such as a class of warships or an armor type. Kagero caters to ship modelers by turning out books filled with line and 3D computer-generated illustrations, with incomparable accuracy to details. For warships, Kagero has two series: 1) Super 3D Drawings and 2) Top Drawings, focusing on a single ship per book. The topic of this book review is one of the Top Drawings series, which are designed for modelers to have a reference for detailed appearances of individual ships. Top Drawings consist of color covers with black & white (B&W) line drawings of the ship, particular features, and equipment, especially armament.

History

The BR 20 "Cicogna" low wing medium bomber was developed by the Italian aircraft manufacturer Fiat during the 1930’s. It entered service in 1936 and was characterized by its metal frame and retractable landing gear. Modern and fast for the period, it was deployed by the “Aviazione Legionaria” and had its baptism of fire in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War. In September 1940, the “Corpo Aereo Italiano”, consisting of the 13th and 43rd “Stormo da Bombardamento” were similarly equipped with the BR-20. The “Stormi” were stationed in Belgium and supported the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain. Despite operational comparisons with modern R.A.F. fighters that exposed the BR-20’s limits, it was used for the duration of WW2 on various fronts by several Regia Aeronautica bomber squadrons.

This is a re-boxing of the very good Dragon kit with addition parts and new decals for five different markings. Included in the kit is a very nice instruction manual by Das Werk. The kit can be built in to one of two different versions – the 10.5cm StuH42 or the 7.5cm StuG III Ausf.G.

The kit contains

• 13 sprues molded in light grey styrene
• 1 Lower hull in light grey
• 1 clear sprue
• 1 Photo Etch sheets
• 2 metal cables
• 1 decal sheet
• 1 instruction booklet.

Construction

The kit is includes a lot of unrequired parts as these are for the other StuG versions that Dragon does. The instruction booklet is great and very detailed to assist in the build. There were a couple of minor errors that I list below that I found during the build.