Forward

There is a trend developing with me relevant to Osprey Books. As with the last Osprey book, once I started reading it I could not put it down. The book arrived on a Friday and I started it Saturday afternoon. On Sunday afternoon I was finished.

Description

This is a 7 3/4 by 10 inch hard-cover book with 384 pages. Befitting the number of pages, the paper quality is good. This book contains many illustrations, diagrams and the photos come from public, private, commercial and museum sources. The font is not large but is very readable. Each weapon described is accompanied by several illustrations, photos and in some cases personal anecdotes about the weapon. Information “boxes” further describe the weapon’s characteristics and specifications. With all the photos, illustrations and drawings the book was a faster read than anticipated.

For those who love modern US Navy and Marine Corps jets, and like camouflage and color, nothing satisfies more than the schemes of an adversary and training squadrons.

VFA-125 also known as the "Rough Raiders" is a United States Navy strike fighter squadron based at Naval Air Station Lemoore, California. The "Rough Raiders" are a Fleet Replacement Squadron flying the F/A-18 Hornet. From the units own home page, their mission “is the indoctrination and training of Navy and Marine Corps personnel for carrier-borne strike fighter squadrons in all phases of F/A-18 employment and, on order, to be prepared to supply replacement aircraft and pilots to the fleet.” They are also the home to the west coast F/A-18C demo team.

Twobobs released this set covering several VFA-125 aircraft providing markings for three “Raiders”:

Anybody who has seen period photos of World War II Soviet soldiers will note that many times their uniforms are decorated with medals and awards. Occasionally a figure manufacturer will provide these molded into the chest leaving the modeler to paint, but the majority of plastic figures do not. Eduard has been working through various subjects within its colored photo etch range, and now we get not just one, but two sets of Soviet World War II uniform insignia and metals in full color! This review covers the early war period, 1940-1943.

This photo etch ship railing set is similar to their 3-Bar Chain railing set, with the obvious difference of having two chain levels instead of three. The accompanying photo compares the two Eduard sets, side by side.This similarity will enable me to liberally borrow from my earlier review:

This unpainted stainless steel set represents drooping chain railings founds on the main decks on most all types of vessels (metal bar railings tend to be found more often on the upper superstructure deck levels). This is generic railing, not geared to any specific navy or class of ship.

Introduction

Soviet aircraft manufacturers, like all the other allied nations during World War II, quickly realized Germany had produced some very potent fighter planes. In response the Soviets produced some classic designs like the Lavochkhin La-7 and the subject of this review, the Yak 3. Resulting from refinements of its predecessors the Yak 7 and 9 series the Yak 3 was lightened and mated with a 1240 hp Klimov engine. The resulting aircraft out climbed and out turned its German opponents at the lower altitudes where most engagements took place in this theater. With a structure built largely of wood, the Yak 3 was a simple, rugged design typical of the Russian approach to military aircraft construction. Over 4000 were built during what Russians called the Great Patriotic War or GPW.