The Naval Institute Guide to World Military Airacraft, by Rene J. Francillon, US Naval Institute Press, 118 Maryland Avenue, Annapolis, MD 21402-5035, 1995, 745 pp, $125.00, $100.00 for Naval Institute members. Rene Francillon is one of the master authors, someone whose work I will buy almost automatically. Anything he writes is important, and this book is also badly needed. Many books come out each year covering modem combat aircraft. Jane's is an obvious example but there are many other less expensive works. What makes this book better than all those is that it lists the orders of battle for the world's air forces. The last book to do this was the Encyclopedia of World Airpower, by Bill Gunston. There were two editions of this, in 1980 and 1986, but there was no third edition. Two hundred and sixty-three pages, or a third of the book, list air force organizations and strengths. The rest of the book is composed of aircraft specifications, black and white photos, and occasional line drawings. The data is very complete, easily as good as Jane's. This is a valuable resource for anyone interested in air forces or modern aircraft. In combination with Combat Fleets of the World and World Naval Weapons Systems the Institute has the ability to provide as complete information on modern naval systems as anyone needs. Let's hope they know it. Naval Wargaming Review is published bimonthly by Nathan A. Forney, 405 Kunkle lane Mechanicsburg, PA 17055, NavalWarR@AOL.COM. Subscriptions are $20.00 a year. Nathan Forney's publication is dedicated to providing scenarios and other data for all the different naval wargaming systems. Coverage includes Shipbase III, See:Krieg, Wooden Ships and Iron Men, Close Action, Victory at Sea, as well as Command at Sea and Harpoon. It covers miniatures, board, and computer naval games. The articles are excellent, extensive and thorough, covering all periods of naval warfare. The May/June 95 issue (Volume 1 #6) includes a nice review of Command at Sea, over twenty pages describing an operational-level Aleutians campaign, complete with rules and orders of battle, a report an a Russo-Japanese War battle fought at Cold Wars '95, a Guadalcanal Campaign report of a game played with Shipbase III, a nice article on simulating command and control, and book and software reviews. Plastic Ship Modeler is published quarterly by Daniel H. Jones, 9800 W. 51st Pl. C-204, Arvada, CO 80002. Subscriptions are $15.00 a year, $20.00 overseas. If you build 1/700 scale ship kits, like I do, you need to get this magazine. It is well put together, full of reviews and articles about ship modeling. If you are only interested in the 1/2400-scale miniatures, this magazine is still useful, because of the articles about painting and camouflage schemes. My first issue had two pages of letters and classfieds, eight pages of kit reviews, an article on PT boat camouflage, another on scratch building a floating dry dock, a page on current naval developments, an article on adjusting color schemes for scale, an article on converting the 1/700 Matchbox HMS Kelly kit to HMAS Nester, another on the Tauro 1/400 Fiume kit, another on tugboats, the monitor Wyoming, photos from the Omaha IPMS contest, helo deck markings for the Arleigh Burke and Knox classes taken from official US Navy sources, and another two pages of book and kit reviews. This is a fun magazine, well worth its subscription price. BT Back to The Naval Sitrep #4 Table of Contents Back to Naval Sitrep List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1995 by Larry Bond and Clash of Arms. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history and related articles are available at http://www.magweb.com