First off, I’d like to thank Osprey Publishing for offering this book up for review and to IPMS/USA for allowing me to do the review.

Many, many books have been written about the great warships of the two World Wars. The library shelves are full of stories about the great sailing ships as they traded and fought their way across the world’s oceans. However, not much has been written about the warships of the ancient world. That's simply because there's not much remaining in the way of artifacts to tell the story and very little remains of the written word of those times.

Adrian K. Wood, in his newly released book Warships of the Ancient World, tries to shed some light on this subject. He acknowledges the scarcity of verifiable resources and the confusion caused by sources that are thousands of years old. However, using what’s available, he makes an excellent case for the information he presents in his book.

Bottom Line

An ultimate and highly detailed modeler’s guide to building IJN Haruna in late 1944 fit. Targeted to 1/350 scale, but suitable for all other scales.

Kagero has produced over a dozen books on WW2 warships that use computer graphics in 3D to provide superb detail. This latest book on the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) battlecruiser/fast battleship Haruna is once again an ultimate resource for knowing what the ship looked like in late 1944. Other time periods are not depicted. This book is an ideal companion to 1/350 kits of the Haruna (Fujimi), but is also an ultimate guide to other scales.

Airfix is releasing all sorts of interesting/strange subjects in their current burst of productivity and this is one of them. It's an old kit that originally dates from 1972, at one point was motorized, and is now billed as part of their Museum Collection. I selected it thinking it would be a fun diversion from my more "intense" projects. Wrong. This is not a simple build. You need to pay attention to what's going on and what goes where and, because it's a cutaway, what needs to be painted before you do anything. There are leftover parts when you're done that I can only assume were once part of the motorization, and some of the rest of the parts are similar to each other, so you need to pay attention to parts' numbers. Be careful during assembly, as some parts need to go together in a certain order and in particular orientations.

• Hobbyboss F4U-4 Corsair, # 80387, $55.99
• True Details Propeller and Cowling Set, #48552, $12.99

Huge thanks as usual go to our friends at MMD Squadron for providing us these great kits and manufacturing the accessories to improve them. We at IPMS USA appreciate your support (and thanks, Dick and Steve, for trusting my questionable skills to execute a review!).

This kit brings yet another Corsair to the stable. In the box is, of course, an excellent F4U-4 kit with minute, delicate surface detail. Multiple options such as antennas, folded or extended wings, and an open canopy are offered. A decal sheet with two Korean War marking options is provided, and a full-color “here’s what it should look like” paint leaflet is also there. All parts are individually bagged and protected; the cowl and clear parts are separated from the main parts by a cardboard divider.

The Russian T-34 was the mainstay of the Red Army during World War II, with about 50,000 produced. The Russians produced numerous variants of the T-34 throughout the war. This Dragon offering is the T-34/76 (for 76mm gun) with the pressed steel turret. This turret was made out of 45mm steel, which actually had better protection then the 52mm turret it was based on. The commander’s cupola was added in the summer of 1943, so this kit falls into that variant timeframe. Many of the sprues are from earlier Dragon T-34 kits and we only use about half the parts. We get 24 sprues with 644 parts, including 85 photo etched parts, three clear parts, a wire tow cable, and two bags of Magic Track links. The joy of stocking your parts box is included with this kit.