Thank you to MRC and Gallery Models for providing another example of an iconic USN helicopter, this time in the distinctive Operation Deep Freeze color scheme. The kit was a very pleasant and enjoyable build. Thank you also to the IPMS Reviewer Corps staff members who do the hard work behind the scenes, getting us kits to review and publishing our work.

This kit is the latest in a series of H-34 variants by Gallery. Excellent reviews of the H-34 Choctaw (by William Nichols), the H-34 U. S. Navy Rescue version (by Rod Lees), and the HH-34J (by Dave Morrissette) may be found on the IPMS site. I suggest consulting these reviews as there are many great ideas and suggestions that are pertinent to the UH-34D reviewed here. All three of these reviewers found items I would’ve missed.

Eduard’s partnership with fellow Czech company HGW continues with their release of these pre-cut printed fabric seat belts. The belts themselves are made from very thin, elastic like fabric onto which the details and colors are printed. The belts are printed in the standard Luftwaffe light tan for this set, with the late war Orlon green available in a separate set.

The hardware is typical Eduard, rendered beautifully and precisely. Three types of mounting brackets are included for the shoulder harnesses, so check your references to the type used specific to your model.

Assembly is straight forward, if not a tad fiddly. The belts re very thin, and thread well through the photo-etched buckles and parts. As noted in other reviews here, they work best if you do not crumple them up before threading them as the instructions states.

History

This is a review of the SBS T-72 M early turret, for the Tamiya T-72 M1 kit. As such, the model requires the Tamiya kit for almost all parts needed in this build (aside from the basic turret itself).

Kit

This box contains 11 resin cast parts, a sheet of decals, 55 separate photo-etched parts, as well as a printed outline of where all the P-E should go’

Though I have a limited amount of experience with PE and resin, I volunteered to undertake this review because I have acquired a ‘taste’ for the Soviet bloc armor and thought this would help expand my modeling knowledge and enjoyment. On second thought, my ambitions may have exceeded my grasp of the undertaking at hand.

The Berlin Airlift and the beginning of the “Cold War” placed new emphasis on the US postwar tank program. The result was the emergence of three basic designs; the T41 light tank, the T42 medium tank and the T43 heavy tank With the start of the Korean War in 1950, T43 production was authorized. Continual testing and slight modifications resulted in the T43E1 which in turn became the M103. Many small defects were found but with the existence of a state of war it was felt justified to begin production of 200 heavy tanks. Most of these defects were corrected and the modified vehicles became the M103A1. The US Army placed their tanks in Europe to serve along side the M48s. However, with the rise of anti-tank guided missiles even the thick armor of the M103A1 was becoming obsolete, so in 1963 they withdrew the heavy tank force from Europe and offered these tanks to the Marine Corps.

Are you familiar with Japanese Puzzle boxes, sometimes called “trick boxes” or “secret boxes”? A Puzzle box is a box that can only be opened through some “obscure or complicated series of manipulations”. The boxes contain a good luck charm and are designed to trick or confuse the person attempting to open them. Some require only a handful of movements in order to slide the various parts of the box into an “open” configuration, and some require hundreds of manipulations. Indeed, Japanese Puzzle Boxes are known for their complex and challenging design but they are also known for their intricate geometric patterns and their exquisite engineering and construction.