Perhaps no other battle of World War I holds the stature of the Battle of the Somme. Contested from 1 July and 18 November 1916 by eleven divisions of the British 4th Army, and six divisions of the French 6th army against the German 2nd Army commanded by General Fritz von Below. The Somme was bitterly fought with over 1 million casualties on both sides making it one of the bloodiest battles in history. Technology was again rapidity advancing at a war time pace and saw the first appearance of tanks on the battlefield to break the stalemate of trench warfare. It was war in all its ugliest. Today, 100 years to the day the scars of battle are still visible. The draw to relatives, those interested in history, or tourists to this ground.
What's New
Many thanks to the Hauler Brengun Company and the IPMS Reviewer Corps for allowing me to review this excellent detailing accessory set. Hauler Brengun is a recent contributor to the IPMS Reviewer system and I am very pleased to report on my experience with these very nice detailing accessories: star-type tie-down points for flight decks of all kinds.
Tie-down points are a ubiquitous feature anywhere on a wide ship’s deck where anchor points are required. The points are often difficult to scratch build and detail effectively, making Brengun’s photoetch tie-down points a welcome addition for anyone building display platforms.
Many thanks to the Hauler Brengun Company and the IPMS Reviewer Corps for allowing me to review this excellent detailing accessory set. Hauler Brengun is a recent contributor to the IPMS Reviewer system and I am very pleased to report on my experience with these very nice detailing accessories: cross-type tie-down points for flight decks of all kinds.
Tie-down points are a ubiquitous feature anywhere on a wide ship’s deck where anchor points are required. The points are often difficult to scratch build and detail effectively, making Brengun’s photoetch tie-down points a welcome addition for anyone building display platforms.
The tie downs arrived in a 5.5 x 2.75 inch plastic pouch with a 4 x 2 inch photoetched brass sheet with 110 tie-downs. No instruction sheet is needed, but a full-sized example image is included. The image is also available on the product website. The photoetched sheet is bright brass with flat tie-downs.
This is a very nice Photo Etch set for the ICM JU 88A-4 Kit. This set adds a lot of extra detail to the interior of the kit, plus additional exterior parts as a bonus.
The photo etch parts are for the:
- Cockpit side panels
- Instrument panel, pedals, radio equipment and various control details,
- AMMO Magazine boxes, Bullet belts, stowage bins, and Bomb sight,
- Machine guns handles, sights and mounts
In the Packet is;
A feature that you can quickly notice on almost any 1/48 soft-skin AFV are the windshield wipers. Often they are either molded into the clear windshield, or they are absent all together. Hauler has come to the rescue with eight different sized windshield wipers. The photoetch sheet provided gives you a total of 120 individual windshield wipers along with simple instructions on folding them to set on the windshield.
Hauler uses an open plastic pouch that is stapled to the header card. You will want to be careful handling the photo-etch windshield wipers as their small size makes them an easy sacrifice to the carpet monster.
History
The J2M2 Raiden (Jack) was designed to achieve a high rate of climb in order to intercept incoming bombers. The aircraft went into full scale production in 1943 and early models included two cowl 7.7mm machine guns and 20mm wing cannons. Later versions omitted the cowl guns and relied on the heavy wing armament instead. It was used extensively late in the war as a bomber interceptor and proved to be one of favorite aircraft of Japanese pilots for this task. There were a total of about 500 aircraft built by the end of World War II and only one surviving example of this aircraft today located at the Planes of Fame Museum in Chino, CA.
The Autumn 2016 edition of Windsock World War Centenary is the third edition of Volume 32. The cover subject is a reproduction Albatros D. Va with Rob Horne in character that is owned and operated by TVAL of New Zealand. More color photos from reproductions from TVAL (Peter Jackson) are depicted in the photo spread, “Stow Maries Photo Shoot” from Essex England. The “Our Reader’s Gallery” features excellent builds of a Wingnut Wings 1/32 Salmson 2A2, 1/32 Fokker D.VII, and a Roden 1/32 Sopwith Triplane.
This is a nice photoetch set for the ICM Ju 88A-4. This set adds a lot of addition detail to the exterior and make it look even better.
The photo etch parts are for the:
- Landing gear details
- Engine and engine mount details
- Land gear bay details
- Engine bay doors
In the packet is:
- 1 large photoetch sheet
- 1 clear film sheet
- 1 instruction sheet
Summary
This is great photoetch set to bring a lot of additional details to this very good kit. The engine parts are great as the engine access panels can be left open. The only issues I found was with the rear wheel bay parts which need to be carefully installed. Also the side brackets that install in the land gear bay are trick when you mount the engine and gear bays to the wing and can pop out.
With that being said the set adds some realistic detail.
Available in the U.S. from "Casemate", in Australia from "Platypus Publications" and in the UK from "Mushroom Models Publications", this book is one of several excellent books in the "Spotlight On" series. All books in this series feature approximately 50 color profiles of the aircraft in question, showing the markings and camouflage patterns seen on the aircraft and in varied national markings.
In this particular publication, illustrator Zbigniew Kolacha provides 50 color profiles of 44 F4U Corsairs. The introduction to the book, 2 pages, provides a short "biography" of this classic W.W.II aircraft. The remainder of the pages are given over to those 50 superior illustrations mentioned previously. Each profile is labeled with the BuNo, if known, the airframe numbers, Squadron affiliation, and area of service.
Hauler produces photo-etched and resin upgrade sets for armored fighting vehicles (AFVs), airplanes, cars, railway vehicles, and dioramas. They also produce a few resin kits. Their products are in most of the common scale sizes, 1/72, 1/48, and 1/35, but they also produce a number of other items in common railroad hobbyist scales.
The kit for this review is a set of sharply cast resin Dragon’s Teeth. Dragon’s Teeth are those square concrete pyramids, most often associated with the Siegfried Line in Germany during World War II. However, these types of fortifications were used in many countries, other than Germany in World War II, and continued to be used today around the world. The idea behind these formations was to create an obstacle to slow the advance of enemy AFVs, or to channel those vehicles into prepared kill zones where anti-tank units waited in ambush.
