The SBD Dauntless was a stalwart aircraft in the USN arsenal from the beginning of the war throughout most of the major naval engagements in the Pacific Theater. The Battle of Midway was a major engagement in the turning of the tide in the Americans favor. Accurate Miniatures’ Dauntless kits were their stalwart kits in their line—serving as the best example of the kit in 1/48 scale. It continues to be re-released by other companies with new decals and parts added here and there. In this Academy offering, the molds are starting to show their age with some flash and warpage. The sink marks are plenty as well and if you’re one to fill every one up- even the no-see-ems, you’ll have your work cut out for you.

What’s Inside the Box

The kit contents come in a nice sturdy box and includes the following well-packed bits:

Thanks to Casemate Publishing & IPMSUSA for the review copy!

Philip Wilkinson has written a tome on a topic seldom seen – Anglo-Russian air force togetherness from before the First World War to a few years ago. This book contains a wealth of historical information that is very difficult to find, along with a first-hand view of military cooperation (or not) by the author. Mr. Wilkinson served in the RAF and thus this book is chiefly concerned with British airpower and its changes through war and peace. His perspective and insights are many and astute. If you are looking for technical details or operational histories, this is not the right book. If you want to know the highlights of RAF-Russian interactions from an RAF viewpoint, this is the right book.

The Top Drawings series specializes in line drawings of a given subject in each booklet. The 94^th installment in this series is devoted to the Gloster Gladiator or J8 as was known in Swedish service.

This booklet has line drawings (front, back, left, right, top, bottom, plus fuselage contours) for the Gloster Gladiator Mk I, MkII, Sea Gladiator, Mk II Meteo, Mk I Trop, J-8, plus Norwegian and Finnish ski types for the Mk I.

In addition to the B&W line drawings, you also get 10 color profiles, in some cases with multiple views (left side, right side, etc.) of the same aircraft. Markings are for British and Finnish service.

The booklet also includes a brief description on the overall history of the aircraft and each line drawing has an explanation as to what was modified from the previous block series. Scale of the drawings is 1/72, 1/48 and 1/32, in a pull-out sheet.

Cross & Cockade International is a non-profit UK based group known as the First World War Aviation Historical Society that publishes their journal four times a year. They also provide a free newsletter (sign up on their website) and occasionally publish WWI themed books like the Sopwith Dolphin monograph I reviewed earlier for IPMS USA. This Journal is the sister of the US Journal, Over The Front.

This book is devoted to the T-54 and Type 59 tanks. It is a visual reference with a great number of photographs to help the modeler distinguish the difference between the variants of T-54A / Typre59 and T-54B.

The book begins with a nice historical section explaining the models of the T-54 family. The timeline explains the changes that occurred to the models of the tanks in chronological order.

After the historical section, you dive headfirst into the first photo section of the book that begins with the T-54 / Type 59. This section has several excellent photographs including extreme close-ups of the tank and its many details. The photographic section is broken down into two sub sections entitled Turret and Hull. The detailed photographs are excellent and were extremely helpful to me as I am currently getting ready to start building a type 59 tank.