Like a fireball in the night, the story of the Vietnam War dominates our historical consciousness. This new addition to Osprey’s Combat series, focuses on the French Foreign Legion versus the Viet Minh from 1948 to 1952. The book concentrates on a four year period, marking the height of the French occupation and counter-insurgency against the Viet Minh. Combat is one of the newer series of Osprey Publishing and it follows a formulaic format. Each book is illustrated with original art work, depicting some of the combat scenes described in the book as well as historical photographs contemporary to the conflict. The first part of each book provides context for the combat, focusing on the issues related to the larger war and the composition of the armed forces involved in each battle featured. The heart of the book are short narratives of individual battles that also feature maps that allow you to follow along with the actions described in the text.

Croco Models from Latvia specializes in aftermarket detail sets and resin sets, mainly of armored vehicles. They sure know how to find unique and interesting subjects. Visit their webpage and you will see.

Besides aftermarket details and resin kits, they release small generic detail parts, in this case a perforated metal plate, with very small circular plates in a diamond pattern.

The size of the fret is about 2 inches by 1.25 inches and it can be used for detailing many different models, probably armor in 1/35 scale (engine covers), perhaps aircraft in 1/32 and 1/48 (air intakes filters).

You can see how finely and homogenous the perforations are, as you can “see-through” them and still see the mini-ziploc bag behind it. Just think of it as a way to dress up any opening towards the interior of a model where you want to make it look like there is “something there”, like a radiator, a screen or just “something” which is better than bare plastic.

This publication can be purchased in one of three formats. The paperback edition (9781472827678) retails at $20.00. Both the eBook (ePub) (9781472827661) and eBook (PDF) (9781472827654) can be purchased for $16.00.

Written by David Greentree, Illustrated by Peter Dennis and Mark Stacy.

David Greentree graduated in History at York before taking an MA in War Studies from King's College London and qualifying as a lecturer in Further Education. In 1995 he accepted a commission in the Royal Air Force and has served in a variety of locations, including Afghanistan and Oman. He has written several books for Osprey, focusing on British military history and World War II. He lives in Southsea, UK.

Mark Stacey was born in Manchester in 1964 and has been a freelance illustrator since 1987. He has a lifelong interest in all periods of history, particularly military history, and has specialized in this area throughout his career. He now lives and works in Cornwall, UK.

The Aircraft

The B-52 has been in service since 1955. Which means that in about 2 years they should start sending them Social Security checks. Because there are still 58 B-52s in service, the type may still participate in combat again. It’s expected the BUFF will still be in service in 2050.

The aircraft in this kit are the types used in the 1960s and 70s in Vietnam, for Operation Rolling Thunder, Operation Arc Light and Operation Linebacker II. 31 B-52s were lost in the war, 17 shot down, one written off due to combat damage, 11 lost to accidents, one burned at the airport and one ran off the end of the runway and ran into a minefield.

This set is designed to fit Trumpeter’s new Su-34 kit. The set consists of 9 parts, a nose gear with a separate lower axle, two main gear legs, two part scissors links for each main gear, and retraction struts for each leg. The castings are nicely done and require just a little clean up on the casting seams. I cleaned the seams up using a Xacto knife and sandpaper. I then used a brass wire wheel in my battery operated Dremel tool at slow speed to polish up the struts and finish smoothing out the casting seams.

In order to assemble the nose strut I had to drill out the end of the axle part as it was partially filled in during the casting process. Before assembling the two parts, double check their orientation with the kit instructions to ensure they are correctly oriented.