Ordinarily I’m pretty good about remembering historic dates. September 1st, 1939, marked the start of the Second World War in Europe. The beginning of World War I occurred in early August 1914, and, of course, the start of the War in the Pacific came about with the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. And yet it took a post on Facebook by the Tank Museum to remind me that its been twenty-five years since the start of the ground war to free Kuwait from Iraqi occupation. While the ground war would last only four days, it signified the rebirth of US nationalism and cemented our faith in the military establishment to see a conflict through despite the odds and turmoil it might cause. Anyway, thank you to all that served and continue to serve, and a particular heartfelt thanks to those that participated in Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Your efforts will always be remembered.
February 24, 2016
DeAgostini Opens the World up to the Land of the Rising Sun
Originally designed squarely for the Japanese market, DeAgostini is now expanding its reaches by offering its recently released modern era Japanese military series to other global markets. The series contains both 1:72 scale ground vehicles as well as 1:250 scale aircraft, which covers just about every aspect of warfighting on today’s battlefield, from self-propelled mortars and howitzers to AWACs aircraft.
All of these new introductions have been listed in their respective section on our web site and we expect to take delivery in early March.
New Line: Arsenal
Over the past few years, Russia has made steady progress in the diecast military space, preferring to follow a partwork approach to gaining market share. Partworks typically involve making a large run of closely related products, which are oftentimes accompanied by a full-color magazine or booklet that describes each subject in detail. One of our distributors has been able to lay claim to inventory from the latest partwork manufacturer, Arsenal, which has set its sights on producing a wide array of 1:72 scale World War II era vehicles. While we won’t be able to offer any printed matter with this initial shipment, we are happy to report that many of the subject vehicles have not been made available by any other manufacturer that we know of, thus making them unique and highly collectible in their own right. The downside is that the label that appears on the etched base for each vehicle appears in Russian Cyrillic as opposed to English. Well, what did you expect, darling? These products are coming to us from Mother Russia!