Eduard continues their upgrades to existing kits by giving the treatment to Hasegawa’s 1/48^th scale F/A-18E and calling it Super Bug! Inside the box, you get the wonderful Hasegawa F/A-18E Sprues which are excellent with fine panel lines, no flash and good detail. To give it the updates treatment, Eduard adds Brassin details including a resin seat and tires; a colorized PE fret is added with parts to upgrade the cockpit and an Eduard Mask set for the kit. To top this off, a superb decal sheet is included with colorful markings for the following:

Kit Information

The old Hawk/Testors U-2 kit was first introduced in 1962 and for the past 58 years (yes it has been that long) was the only option available to build this aircraft in 48^th scale. Then in the 1990’s we modelers had options of using some resin sets available to make other variants, as well a little more of an accurate detailed kit.

This is one of the new additions to Osprey Publishing ongoing Combat series (or as I call it, their ‘versus’ series). Each volume takes a look a particular slice of a campaign or war to examine the strengths and weaknesses of the two combatants and how they fared in a campaign or set of skirmishes. This particular volume takes a close look at how Soviet Partisans fought against German security forces in the region around Leningrad from the beginning of Operation Barbarossa through 1943. As with most Osprey publications, this work is illustrated with original artwork by Johnny Shumate, historical photographs, and detailed maps of the battleground.

There are a number of 1/35^th scale M16 half track plastic models available from Monogram, Tamiya, Dragon, and even an offering from Academy/Minicraft. Among these other manufacturer's is AFV Club with a newly tooled 1/35^th scale M16 MGMC “Meat Chopper”. This kit features a detailed chassis and engine, positionable doors, hood panels, and radiator covers as well as a plethora of other details that might just make this offering the best M16 MGMC of them all.

Assembly of the 'Meat Chopper' begins with the chassis and that task begins with the transmission. The transmission consists of some twenty-six individual parts, which should give you a clue to the detail that comes in the box. (Reminiscent of a Bronco kit.) Not to be left cowering in the corner, the detailed engine consists of over thirty parts! Which includes everything from six, individual spark plugs to a four piece generator.

I don’t think that much needs to be said about the venerable Hellcat, the premiere US Navy fighter of WW2 (sorry Corsair lovers, I’ll admit to some bias here. When I started as a structural designer at Grumman many decades ago, some of my mentors had actually worked on this aircraft).

Eduard’s Profipack boxing of this little gem includes crisp moldings in light gray and clear styrene, two decal sheets (markings for 5 variants as well as a very full stenciling sheet in both black and white fonts), two sets of p/e parts (one of which contains their beautiful pre-painted etched cockpit parts) and two sets of canopy masks. As is common in Eduard kits, you’ll find some parts that are not used in the build, but this is made clear in the assembly booklet – full color, over 10 pages, including color profiles).