and that’s why it was worth breaking tradition and

adding five marking options to this Weekend release.

ACCESSORIES

As usual, there are dozens of accessory items

available in the new item listing. I will mention only

a few that I think would grab my attention, such as the

F-35B 1/48th RAM Panel masks for the Italeri kit. We

have recently started to deal more with these masks

for surface areas and high-quality markings, because

spraying them has become an increasingly popular

modeling technique. Of course, classic canopy masks

are also on the list. In the LööK line, I would like to

point out the A-20G Havoc 1:32nd set for the HKM kit.

In the SPACE line, we have, among other things, the

Bf 110 G-4 and FM-2 sets for the Eduard kits, and the

A-10C from Academy, all in 1:48th scale.

In the Brassin department, we have sets designed

for our own August releases such as bronze landing

gear legs, exhausts and aileron mass balance weights

for the Bf 109F in 1:72nd. We have several sets for the

48th FM-2, and these include a cockpit, bronze landing

gear legs, a wing fold and several smaller sets, and

for the F-104C, an exhaust nozzle and speedbrakes.

For the 1:48th scale Bf 109F we have a newly designed

3D printed cockpit, in this case with an older version

of the seat, that was the same as that found in the

Bf 109E. A number of the types mentioned are also

covered in photoetching, but again, you can find much

more on that by reading further on down through this

newsletter.

the most interesting, intensive and successful

deployment of these aircraft. This was in the Battle

of Samar Island, referred to by historians as “The US

Navy’s Finest Hour”. Given that a large Japanese group

led by Admiral Kurita aboard the gigantic battleship

Yamato, with two other battleships, eight cruisers, and

eleven destroyers in tow, was driven off the island by

a few destroyers and escort carriers, this is probably

not an overstatement. The second article was written

by Richard Plos, and it is focused on the creation of

the FM-2 and its technical differences compared to

the preceding F4F-4 and, by extension, the FM-1. Miro

Barič’s miniseries about the search for lost ships

ends with the fourth volume in this edition. Here the

topics crossed a bit. He also mentions, among other

things, the Battle of Samar and the survey of wrecks

connected to it. The series about the air battles

over Ukraine by the same author continues with its

seventeenth edition. In this case, unfortunately, the

ending of the series is neither in the author’s nor our

hands ... The section of historical articles is rounded

out by Boxart Story, a series of short articles that

describe the historically real events depicted on our

boxarts. The Bf 109 F-4 and A6M3 Zero Type 32 topics

were taken up by Jan Bobek and the third was added

by Richard Plos. This is an article relevant to our

reissue of the MiG-21MF, the box art of which depicts

a future Vietnamese astronaut shooting down an

American B-52. Or maybe not …

In closing, Wednesday marks the start of the

IPMS USA National Convention, this year in San

Marcos, Texas. As every year, we organize an Internet

Afterparty to go with it, this year it started already on

the weekend that has just passed. As you may have

guessed, my colleagues and I are heading to San

Marcos. I am finishing this introduction with sweat

running down my face during this leg of the trip, and

I will finish it off in Corpus Christi, a few hundred

meters from the USS Lexington, which is moored here

as a museum piece. Just note that writing an intro to

the newsletter on the road is always hell, and if I have

forgotten anything important, I am certain that you will

find in the flowing pages!

Happy Modeling!

Vladimir Sulc

Historical articles

It is clear to me that the most popular part of any

of our monthly newsletters are the historical and

technical articles. As I already indicated above, the

Wildcat, in its FM-2 version, was a uniquely interesting

aircraft, and we would like to coax modelers who

have neglected this “Wilder Cat” to draw the same

conclusion. For this reason, there are two articles this

month focused on the topic of the FM-2. The first one

was written for us by the renowned American author

Thomas McKelvey Cleaver, who describes probably

August 2023

INFO Eduard

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