Kits

History

The Messerschmitt BF-110 has received a lot of bad press in recent years, mainly because it was not able to contend with comtemporary RAF fighters during the battle of Britain.  However, following the Battle of Britain, the type continued in production, and actually was quite successful in the close support role, especially against the Russians, and later, with more powerful engines as the “Gustav” model, as a night fighter it was very useful against RAF night bombers.

Bronco has joined the list of manufacturers that have released a kit of the venerable “Jeep”.  I believe Heller was the first, then Italeri, then Tamiya (twice) and Dragon.  This (by first looks alone) is the New Standard!  Bronco of course calls it a, “U.S.

Meng exploded onto the modeling scene several years ago and has begun to roll out a variety of post-World War Two vehicles. The AMX-30B is one of Meng’s newest releases and it’s a keeper. Of the same generation of the US M-60 series, this was meant as a multi-national tank serving the needs of France and Germany. Germany dropped out of the project. The prototype was ready in 1960 and went into series production in 1966. Over 4000 were manufactured and exported around the world. It saw service in Desert Shield/Storm and continues to serve in other countries. The kit is composed of seven sprues molded in green and five sprues of track links and pads molded in brown, a small sprue of clear parts, a small fret of photoetch, and a lower hull and turret. There are decals for two vehicles. There are a total of 730 parts.

The Tupolev TU-2 was introduced into service in 1942 and produced as several variants to include a high speed bomber, dive-bomber, interceptor, recon and as represented in this review kit, a torpedo bomber.  The TU-2T torpedo bomber began it service in early 1945 with overall production of the TU-2 continuing until 1948. Russia retired the TU-2 in 1950 but sold many of them to other nation's air forces. China used the TU-2 until the late 1970’s.   

Ships are not something I normally model but I jumped at the chance to review this submarine. It is by a new company from Hong Kong and if this kit is a sample of things to come, I am surely looking forward to their future releases.

To begin with, I was thinking 1/700  or 1/350 scale when I asked to review this kit. It is in 1/200 scale and is rather long, 19 inches to be exact. The packaging is in a large sturdy box and the parts are molded in light grey plastic on 5 sprues. There is one sprue of clear parts for the OS2U-3 Kingfisher and two in black for the base.

Overall the construction is very simple. The lower hull is in two pieces and the upper hull is in three. The sub may be built as either waterline or full hull. I chose to build it as a full hull on a base. If one is to build it showing the torpedoes in a firing position there are several parts for the torpedo tubes with a couple of fine torpedoes with photo etched props. If one models the torpedo tubes closed, eliminate parts D34, D35, D23, P7 and P8 and use parts D29 and D33.

This HO scale rendition of Mel’s Drive-In from the movie, American Graffiti, comes with a colorful and attractive box art. It’s a multi-media kit, with the exterior structure in plastic, but with the interior supplied on pre-printed card stock. The instructions are easy to follow and consist of 7 steps.

The suggested colors are listed, but are basic, such as white, grey, and brick red. After a little online research I found an interior shot which I used for reference. The research indicated that the diner had a black and white floor.  I simulated this by painting the floor white, then using black decal trim film for the tiles.

The clear parts are made of some unknown type of flexible material.  At first they appeared cloudy, but upon closer inspection, I discovered a removable sticky protective film on them, similar to what comes on a Plexiglas sheet from the hardware store. I removed the film by using a sharp knife to turn up a corner, then peeling it off.  This peculiarity isn’t mentioned in the instructions.

Platz has added to their stable of excellent kits with its issue of the Curtiss C-46D, in their JASDF series.  The size of the real aircraft means that even in 1/144 scale, this is a pretty good-size model and doesn’t require micro-surgery to work on.  The kit’s molded in light gray plastic with beautifully engraved panel lines and detail.

The HMS Warspite was one of the Queen Elizabeth class dreadnaughts launched during the First World War. These were the state of the art battleships of the time and the general soundness of their design shows in the fact that the last of them was not disposed of until the 1950's! They went through many refits that changed their appearance quite a bit over the years. The WWII Warspite has been modeled several times in several scales, most recently in the newly popular 1/350, but never in her WWI fit. The Trumpeter kit is of her appearance when she was launched, thus she joins a very small group of injection kits of WWI ships and I believe the only one as she was during that war. As I build ship models very slowly, this will be a two-part review. This first will be an in the box review and the second will be an actual build. Now, let's open the box and see what we have.

When Moebius announced a kit of the “Creature from the Black Lagoon with Victim”, I was excited. I have always been a fan of the 1954 movie creature, story and Julie Adams. It got even better when they announced Adam Dougherty, the "Kreature Kid". It was a wonderful day when Review package arrived in the mail. Out came the DVD and straight to the basement.

I broke the kit down into three builds- the creature, the girl, and the base. The kit comes with an excellent sandy base with lizard, fossil hand, stones and a nice tropical fern.

Thank you to Mr. Neil Yan of HK Models and the IPMS Reviewer Corps for the opportunity to review a wonderful new model release in large-scale aircraft.   This next installment is fairly brief and describes the construction of the nose section and the remainder of the fuselage.

The bombardier and navigator stations in the nose are well appointed, with a Norden bombsight, a pair of 50-caliber flex guns with ammunition belts, the sight and controls for the chin turret so distinctive for the G models, seats and seat mounts, and navigation table.  There is even a lamp for the table!  Construction was very straightforward, although installation of the guns was a little tricky.  The belts are not at all flexible, but are indeed correctly molded to fit.  I elected to glue the belts to the guns per the instructions, and then install the guns in the cheeks following the rest of the interior.  This allowed me enough flex to twist the guns around a bit to get proper fit before gluing the points where the belts exit the ammo boxes.