The FACA programme (Future Fighter and Attack Aircraft) was once the largest investment in armaments made in Spain. When choosing the F-18 of McDonnell Douglas (today Boeing), the Air Force has had since 1986 - for the first time in its history - one of the most advanced fighter planes ever designed, with very wide possibilities for adapting new systems throughout its operational life, as evidenced by the Retrofit made in the early 1990s and the current MLU. The FACA program (which ultimately remained in 72 aircraft), followed by the CX programme (for 24 aircraft), was the most important challenge faced by the Spanish Air Force since its creation. The professionalism demonstrated by the commission in charge of flight and technical evaluations won the admiration of the countries involved in the programme. The F-18 Hornet has proven to be the ideal aircraft for air forces in countries with large territorial areas and wide coastlines, or extreme weather conditions.

In 1937, Dornier obtained a patent for a plane with two engines in the fuselage, driving the pull and push propellers. The design was marked P.59, and its concepts were refined in 1939 in the P. 59-05 variant, after which the design was put in a drawer. This type of plane was not needed at the time. Nevertheless, limited experimental work was carried out, the result of which was a small Goppingen Go-9 plane, with an aerodynamic system obtained from P.59, as well as three-support landing gear with a front wheel and an engine driving a push propeller through a long shaft. The results of these experiments were used when designing the P.231 aircraft in several variants - also combining piston and jet propulsion. When in 1942 the RLM announced the requirements for a high-speed multipurpose aircraft, the equivalent of the British Mosquito, Dornier proposed the P.231 as a rather unusual answer. Despite the risks posed by the different P.231 concept, Dornier was commissioned to build several prototypes.

Many books on the Luftwaffe in World War II have been published over the years, although the Night Fighter´s branch has been studied less often. In our Guide to German Night Fighters in World War II you will be able to know all the types and subtypes of aircraft used by the Luftwaffe in the night defense of Germany. In addition, in a didactic way we will know the history of the German Night Fighters, the Units, aces, tactics, types of radars, the camouflages, the armament, etc. We will not forget the use of night fighters made in Germany in other countries such as Italy, Romania or Hungary, or even Japanese night fighters. Finally, we will make a ranking of the German night fighters to know which of them was the best. In this guide you will find everything you need to learn about German Night Fighters in an easy but comprehensive way.

The book presents a description of work on a model Ju 88 A-4. The author shows step by step each element of the modelling workshop.

Aleksander Siewierski, originally from Georgia, was in the United States in 1917 and was there when the revolution in Russia broke out. As Alexander Seversky, he founded the Seversky Aero Corporation. Alexander Kartvelli (also a Georgian) became his main designer. Unfortunately, financial problems led to firing Seversky, and his company changed its name to Republic Aviation Corporation. The projects started and developed by Seversky, which resulted in the P-35 fighter, were continued, though. As a result of its further development, a design for the XP-41 high-altitude fighter equipped with a turbocharger was prepared. Only a prototype was built, while many of its solutions went to a more advanced aircraft, designated AP-4, and finally P-43.

The British battleship HMS “Vanguard” was built in the years 1941–1946 at the John Brown & Company shipyard in Clydebank. It was quite an unusual ship due to the fact that it was built as the largest and also the last of the British battleships, and armed with artillery towers stored since 1925, taken from the cruisers HMS “Courageous” and HMS “Glorious”. It is widely regarded as Britain's best designed battleship, well-armed but also least needed. Design work began before World War II and was completed a year after its end, making it one of the longest-built ships in history. Her service, however, was quite short and lacking of interesting events. The unit was launched in 1944, and it entered service only two years later, so it did not have the opportunity to take part in World War II. The first major event in the history of the ship was the three-month journey to the British dominion of the Union of South Africa with George VI, Queen Mary and both daughters, Princess Elizabeth and Anne, on board between February and May 1947.

The MiG-3 fighter plane, like the history of the creation of the Mikoyan and Gurevich (Микоян и Гуревич) design bureau, is relatively well known to anyone interested in the history of Soviet aviation. Many books and articles have been published about this machine, but information about the circumstances of the birth of the project and the conditions of its creation are very brief and concise. MiG-1 and MiG-3 were the most numerous new generation fighters in Soviet aviation at the time of the German invasion of the USSR. They played a very important role in the first period of the war. Until now, it has been assumed in the literature that this applies mainly to the use of these aircraft during the battle of Moscow, as well as capital's and Leningrad's air defence, but MiGs also took on a large weight of air combat at the front in 1941.

The German heavy tank destroyer Panzerjäger Tiger (P) (Sd.Kfz. 184) Ferdinand was based on the chassis of the Tiger (P) tank designed by Ferdinand Porsche. The vehicle was not accepted by army, but because 90 chassis have already been produced at the Nibelungenwerke plant, it was decided that they could be usefully developed. This is how the tank destroyer based on the Tiger (P) chassis was born.

In the late 1890s the Russian Empire sought to strengthen its presence in the Far East, China and Korea. Faced with a growing threat posed by the Imperial Japanese Navy, the Russians saw an urgent build-up of their naval forces in the region as an utmost priority. On February 20, 1898 Emperor Nicholas II approved a supplementary shipbuilding program “for the Far East”, which would see the construction of six 5,000 – 6,000 ton cruisers, in addition to ships already being built under the 1895 program. The task to formulate technical requirement for the new vessels was delegated to the Maritime Technical Committee (Russian: MTK).

In early 2001 we launched the CAMOUFLAGE & DECALS series. Although the first book in the series was an instant hit, we were forced to abandon the series due to technological issues with decals production. Over the years we released a number of books with decals sets, while the CAMOUFLAGE & DECALS series was patiently waiting for its turn. Well, the time has come to revive the series. Encouraged by mail from our Readers and queries from hobby shops all over the world, we decided to revisit the idea from twenty years ago. We are launching no fewer than three new books in the series, filled with artwork commissioned from well-established and respected authors, with whom we have had a pleasure to cooperate over the years. Featured artists include Jacek Pasieczny, Janusz Światłoń, Maciej Noszczak, Sławomir Zajączkowski, Arkadiusz Wróbel and Mariusz J. Dziedzic. Future books in the series will feature vehicles and aircraft in camouflage representative for a particular period and battlefield. Each book will come with a free set of decals corresponding to the main theme of the book. The first five books in the series will feature color plates published over the years in Kagero books and magazines. At the time of writing the work continues on follow-on CAMOUFLAGE & DECALS books which will feature new, previously unpublished material.

Japanese cruiser of the Second World War, the only ship of her type. The cruiser "Ōyodo" was designed in Japan in the late 1930s in response to the need for long-range cruisers. Of the many variants prepared by the technical service, the design of the type 'C' cruiser, completed in October 1938, was selected. The hull lines of the ship are based on the slightly enlarged hull of the Agano class cruisers.

His book "Soviet Heavy Fighters 1926 - 1949" was written mainly to showcase some of the lesser known, often forgotten, aircraft types, as well as a group of young and prolific aircraft designers who never had a chance to flourish under difficult wartime conditions and limitations inherent to the Soviet aviation industry of the time. Many of the aircraft designs discussed in the book never went into full-scale productions, others didn't progress beyond the prototype stage and some were complete failures. Nonetheless, quite a few of them featured interesting and innovative design solutions. Hopefully, this comprehensive book will serve the purpose of shedding light on some of the lesser known episodes in the history of Soviet aviation and save them from falling into obscurity.

If you were to ask about the symbolic aircraft of the desperate defence of Polish sky during the tragic September ’39, without any doubt the answer should be one – the PZL P.11c. Although older machines (PZL P. 7a and P.11a) fought next to it, the mentioned variant was a true backbone of the defence force. Pilots liked P.11c but in all publications it is described by an adjective “obsolete”. It was the penultimate stage in the evolution of a long line of fighter planes, no longer having the disadvantages of the “infant period”, but also actually constituting a closed alley in the evolution of this type of design. The PZL P.11g modification showed that the already mature construction can only be improved to a small extent. Being an export alternative, faster, equipped with a much more powerful engine and better armed PZL P.24 were actually the end of the possibilities of high wing strut aircraft. This was understood in Poland, where design offices were no longer involved in the further development of such structures (P.11g was just an emergency attempt to obtain not the most modern, but an efficient fighter). Unfortunately, it was not possible to produce or buy a successor abroad on time. That is why Poland entered the conflict equipped with fighter planes, once belonging to the world leaders, but giving way to the latest enemy machines.

In this book, I would like to introduce to our readers the first major campaign of the Royal Hungarian Army fought against the Red Army in Ukraine from July until November of 1941. The Barbarossa campaign started 80 years ago, on 22 June 1941, pitting the forces of the Soviet Union against those of the Third Reich and its allies. Hungary was among the less willing allies who participated on the side of the Germans. On strategically level the Hungarian involvement during the first phase of the war against the Soviet Union was minimal. On the other hand, the Hungarian committed their most modern, partially motorized units; the Mobile Corps and the elite mountain jagers and border guard troops of the VIII Corps and the selected units of the Royal Hungarian Air Force. Through this lavishly illustrated book I wanted to show you what war meant for ordinary soldiers, civilians from the Hungarian perspective in 1941.

The M3 vehicle was a thirteen-person armoured transporter that could be used to transport mechanized infantry or as an artillery tractor, ambulance, communications vehicle, etc. It was also used as a carrier for various types of guns.American factories producing M2 and M3 armoured personnel carriers were overloaded and could hardly meet orders for the army. That’s why, in 1942, the International Harvester Company stated that it was capable of producing a combat vehicle similar to the M3, but due to some differences in the plant's machine park, not all components could be made in the same way. Therefore, it required slight changes in the design of the new transporter. Thus the Half-Track Personnel Carrier M5 was born, which was almost identical to the M3 version. The M5 versions were created primarily for the needs of foreign customers. They were used by the British Army, as well as Polish, Czech and "Free French" units. The British used them primarily to tow various types of anti-tank guns. These vehicles also found their way to the USSR under the Lend-Lease agreement. After the Second World War, they were also used by the Israeli army.

Following World War I, the need arose to renew the aging air force of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (KSHS - Kraljevina Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca) which consisted mostly of obsolete war relics. The Kingdom approached the Dornier factory having recognized its reputation for quality instead of going exclusively to its traditional ally, France. Of course, wartime reparation payments played a role in this decision, however this is not to detract from the fact that at the time airplanes which the Kingdom expressed interest in and eventually purchased from Dornier, had no equivalents. From 1926 when Do D was first introduced in the Naval Air Force (PV - Pomorsko Vazduhoplovstvo), various Dornier airplanes and floatplanes served with distinction and outlasted numerous changes in politics, names of countries, borders, flags, kings, dictators and presidents. Three of those, Do 17K, Do 22 and Do Wal, took part in the brief 1941 April war opposing the German Reich who itself fielded Do 17 bombers in its ruthless attacks against the Yugoslav capital, Belgrade. After over 90 years of distinguished service, the retirement of Dornier Do 28D-2 brings the closure to the magnificent and without precedent Dornier Saga in the western Balkans. Even 50 years after the passing of great Claude Dornier, his brand of airplanes is still leaving a lasting mark in the world as well as Yugoslav and Serbian aviation history.