Advertisement
Header
Steelmasters is a French modelling mag published by H&C in Paris. There’s a bi-monthly magazine & quarterly specials called “Thematiques”. Their 20th special – based on the Pacific – has just arrived.
The bi-monthly magazine is currently running to edition number 116 & our Steelmasters collection – dating all the way back to number 1 in 1994 – is one of our prized possessions.
What we like are the excellent production values. Each edition is packed with several builds. Often they are original builds commissioned by the magazine rather than recycled from other publications. The team of regular contributors model to a high standard, images & artwork are crisp & clean with excellent photography. There’s plenty of historical articles & the pages are not saturated with ads.
The specials share these high production values. They come in a hard-spined format & boast more pages. Each edition is usually based around a theme & carries historical articles about the tanks & vehicles or the battles related to that theme.
In the case of #20 it is the Pacific. This is their second special on the war in the Far East & is mainly filled with tank modelling articles but there’s a smattering of vehicles too & even a PT Boat.
It is crammed with great builds, all captured in stunning photographs printed on high quality paper.
In the pages you find historical articles on the US LVT family of vehicles & the Japanese Type 95 Ha-Go light tank.
Model-wise, there’s a bundle of builds in different scales including the following:
-AFV Club’s Water Buffalo in 1/35th scale
-Dragon/Cyber-Hobby’s Type 2 Ka-Mi in 1:35th scale
-A great diorama with an M4A2 Sherman attacking Tarawa
-An up-armoured Okinawa Sherman
-A Japanese Type 97 Chi-Ha, again in 1:35th scale
Well worth a read, or should that be a look, if you don’t understand French – which by the way is not a problem, as the mostly the pictures do the talking.
Highly recommended.
UPDATE: Hot off the press! One of our French readers has informed us that you can now get Steelmasters in English! Publisher H&C have made the decision to start publishing in English so check out their website...
Basecol
