MORE INFO ON WWI AIRCRAFT
I read your article in the recent Courier (#74) with much interest, as our local club games with 1/144 scale WW I airplanes about once a month or so. In your article you mention Comet Miniatures as the source for the Micro Ace planes but, no doubt in editing, the address for Comet Miniatures was omitted.
You also referred to the Mamoli planes in your article and mentioned that you were trying to contact Mamoli regarding their line of aircraft. our club has a dozen or so Mamoli planes bought over the years but we cannot find any current source for the planes.
My most recent catalog from Model Expo lists several Mamoli ship models, so the Company is, apparently, still exporting some products to this country.
Your article did not mention Reviresco as a source for 1/144 aircraft, but the issue of the Courier that contained your article included a separate reference to that company. The models are the nicest I have seen in that scale. I have ordered about twenty Reviresco models, through the Federation Armory, 2131 Camino de los Robles, Menlo Park, CA 94025, telephone # 415-8544797, but the models are also available directly from Reviresco, which has a website at:WWW.halcyon.com/shamrock/welcome.html, and you can order directly from the list there. Currently, Reviresco has about 16 WW I models with the single-seaters priced at $6 and the two-seaters at $8.
Leland Erickson of the Federation Armory tells me that Revirescols modeler, Alan Wolfi, will design and cast new models as special orders if accurate scale drawings are provided. I have not yet investigated the costs of such special orders, but if your gaming group is interested perhaps we could jointly order some new castings for aircraft not available elsewhere.
Our club uses Blue Max, ex-GDW, but we recently ran across a group that is adapting John Stanoch's Squadron rules ("Red Sun/Blue Sky) etc. to WW I with great success. Those rules are due for publication mid-1999 and will be worth your inspection when they are published.
I would appreciate it if you could provide me with an address for Comet Miniatures so that I can order some of the Micro Ace planes. I would also be interested in ordering some planes from Mamoli if you are successful in contacting that company.
Finally, as you probably know, there are quite a few WW I aviation websites. Good places to start are:www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/7749/wwilinks.htm and www.overthefront.com/.
The following are the only addresses I have for Mamoli and Micro Ace (this one did indeed get cut - inadvertently - during final editing). C. Mamoli; 20149 Milano; Viale Teodorico.2,Italy
Micro Ace c/o Comet Miniatures,46-48 Lavender Hill, Battersea, London, United Kingdom SW11 5RH
Comet Miniatures is still advertising the Micro Ace planes, so the address should be OK. I've written to Mamoli 3 times without response; either the address is bad, they don't have an on-premises english-speaker, or they aren't interested in doing business. If I ever hear from them, I'll let you know, though.
You're right, I didn't refer to Riveresco's aircraft! When I wrote this, I didn't even know they existed. I've been to their website at: http://www.halcyon.com/shamrock/fighter/pilot/fpkits.html though, (built-ups of all of their aircraft there - looks nice!), have spoken with John Mckewan (Mr. Riveresco, as far as I can tell...), and, with any luck, will have a box full of aircraft waiting for me when I get home from work Tuesday. I'll be reviewing them as soon as I see 'em. Your feedback/guidance is encouraging because now I know I didn't 'buy a pig in a poke'.
I can think of a few aircraft I wouldn't mind acquiring that aren't currently available... A decent DH2 (Skytrex is OK, but not great), a decent Gunbus (ditto), ANYthing with more than one engine, a Halb D.II, almost ANYthing Austrian, a Salmson, a Salamander (OK - not well-used, but looks nice!), and more 2-seaters.
Oh - if you haven't read it yet, read John McKewan's article at the Riveresco website about making 1/144 lozenge decals.
As a die-hard Blue Sky gamer, I will certainly be interested in inspecting your rules whenever they come out. - Bill Rutherford.
IN DEPTH ARTICLE INSPIRATIONAL!
Though I am not into WWI miniatures gaming, I was very impressed with the lead article in the last issue. It gave a very good overview of the period with the models available, rules, and boardgames. It would have been further enhanced if a review of the computer games available had been included (even though it was outside of the scope of the magazine). I even thought that the advertising layout with the article was a nice touch. I would like to see other periods covered in the same way in your pages. I was especially impressed with the figure and rules reviews presented. I have just started a Napoleonic Sepoy Army based on Redoubt's wellington's Indian Battles Range aand could use a few tips on developing this period as both a Napoleonic and a Colonial game.
In response to your editorial, I would like to see a beginner's Column or better yet, an intro Column for various periods in the pages of The Courier.
Articles I would like to see is developing armies for periods (somethiong I have had trouble with in the fact that a couple of periods have fizzled out for me), a review of the figures available and their compatibility with each other would be useful as well, a review of the rules, the usefulness of the scale(thanks to Fred Vietmeyer I still game and collect 30mm scale much to my detriment, I believe), campaign development, a review of the rules available. If I was going to "get into" WWI Miniature Airplanes, that article would have been an inspiration.
Thank you for your thoughtful letter. We try to provide what you want in reviews in each issue. The Barret Measure is a guide to how well figures from different lines of from different sculptors fit with one another. There are so many new figures coming out on the market every month or so, that it would be near impossible to have a comprehensive, yet timely review of figures available for the major periods. Somehting a little obscure like WWI Air Gaming is somewhat different.
We cannot hope to catch many gamers who may be considering a particlular new period with just the right in depth article, rather we hope to inspire gamers to try another period. We are working on a Intro/beginner's column. The first should appear later in 1999. I would like to hear more about why armies you were planning "fizzled out" on you - it will give me some insight on what kind of artilce may be needed. You will enjoy, I am sure the Vietmeyer article in this issue. If all goes well we plan to do another Vietmeyer memorial game at historicon '99, I hope you can join us. DICK BRYANT
WHY HILARY CLINTON?
Several readers were playing close attention to Otto (Sometimes Victor) Schmidt's article "Flanders - "3 Battles to Try" and noticed that he lumped Hilary in with a group of people who he described as exploiting, dehumanizing and degrading artisans, ect. These readers were unfortuantely reading closer than I was and I apologize for it. It is part of my job to keep the politics out of this hobby magazine and I flubbed it. I will try to do better in the future. - DICK BRYANT
Back to Table of Contents -- Courier #75
To Courier List of Issues
To MagWeb Master Magazine List
© Copyright 1998 by The Courier Publishing Company.
This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com