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WWII US Army Kitchen Truck (35587) 1:35 ICM via The Hobby Company The Chevrolet G506 truck formed the basis of a range of 4x4 load-carrying vehicles that could carry up to 1.5 tonnes of cargo or equipment. They were initially made under the 4100 code, then moved to the 7100 range, and usually had a standardised enclosed cab, a 3.9L straight-6 engine under the bonnet, with a four-speed “crash” (non-synchro) gearbox putting down an uninspiring 80hp through all four wheels. It rapidly became the Allies’ standard light truck, and served in substantial quantities with the Allies in the West, the Soviets in the East, and the forces fighting Japan in the Far East. There were a myriad of variants, some in US Army service, others in USAAF service, with almost 50,000 of two specific types, the G7107 and G7117 sent over to the Soviets under the Lend/Lease program. The G7017 had a cargo bed with canvas top, while the G7117 was the same except for the addition of a winch to give it some static pulling power. They were well-liked by their drivers and crews, and were adapted to other tasks due to their ubiquity, such as being used by the Soviets to carry Katyusha rockets on a stripped-down flatbed. In US service, they were sometimes used as mobile field kitchens, filling the load bed with equipment and supplies that were unloaded at the intended destination to feed the troops. The Kit This is a reboxing of a recent kit from ICM with extra parts, and is one of a wide range that is now available from them. It’s a full interior kit, with engine, chassis, cab and load area all included, along with some very nice moulding and detail, particularly in the chunky tyres, plus the new parts of course. It arrives in one of ICM’s medium-sized top-opening boxes with the usual captive inner flap, and inside are fourteen sprues in grey styrene, a clear sprue, decal sheet and glossy instruction booklet with colour profiles on the rear pages. Construction begins with the ladder chassis, first removing 14.5mm from the front of each rail, as the winch is fixed to this area. Leaf-springs are installed fore and aft, adding cross-braces and a multi-part rear towing eye fitted to create the structure, and the winch spool made from four parts with a pair of arms to the sides, one side fitted with the motor housing, the other the braking assembly. The front bumper has a roller added to the lower centre portion, and is attached to the main chassis rails by a pair of beams that also support the winch assembly underneath. The engine is built up based on the straight six-cylinder block, with carburettor, dynamo and transmission added, plus the pulleys and fan at the front, and a short drive-shaft at the rear that links to the transfer box in the middle of the chassis. The rear bumper irons, fuel tank, transfer casing and front axle are installed, before the rear axle is made up and fitted with another drive-shaft, while the front axle gets the steering arms installed, keeping the two ball-jointed hubs pointing in the same direction, providing you’ve not been over-enthusiastic with the glue. The exhaust and its manifold slip into the underside of the chassis from below, and the battery box attaches to the outside of the ladder chassis next to a pair of tread-plated steps, then on the left of the engine, the air box and intake are attached to finish it off. The crew cab is next, beginning with the dashboard that inserts in the front bulkhead complete with decal for the dials, along with an overhead panel that has a rear view mirror added, joining it with the cab floor and decked out with a pair of levers, gear stick and hand-brake on the floor, three foot pedals and the steering wheel on a long column that slides through a hole in the kick board in front of the pedals. The driver and co-driver share a bench seat that is made up from back, cushion and a C-shaped surround under the front, fixing it into the rear of the cab that has the back wall with small radiused window, then the roof is fitted, after which the doors are made up with handles, winders and glazing, locating them within the frame in the open or closed position. On the front of the firewall a vent is glued to the scuttle panel, and two reservoirs are attached, then the cab is mated to the chassis along with a couple of additional engine ancillaries and linkages to the front axle. The radiator is laminated from core, surround and tin-work, with a bezel fitted to the front and the assembly applied to the front of the engine, attaching to the chassis and input/outlet hoses that are already there by this stage. The cowling sides and front fenders are installed to permit the front grille to be attached, plus the bonnet, and it shows a large front bumper iron that runs full width again, and is quite literally a girder, although the one in the second drawing doesn’t have the roller for the winch, so is most likely a faux pas by the instruction designer. Behind the cab a spare tyre is placed on a bracket near the exhaust on the left, and attention then turns to the load bed. The load bed floor is a single moulding with a ribbed texture down the centre, and a thick headboard base with hooks, and the reflectors moulded-in. The same is true of the shallow sides, which also have a series of tie-down hooks fixed along their lengths, and the headboard gets the same treatment. An upper headboard incorporating two vertical pillars is glued to the front, and a pair of planked sides that consist of siding on five pillars per side are made up and are added to their locations, while underneath the floor is stiffened by adding four lateral supports, a trapezoid rear valence with lights, and four vertical mudguard boards and their supports. The front valance has a hole with a length of tube for the fuel filler to thread through, and the final position of this tricky part is shown in a scrap diagram to help you with placement. It’s time for the wheels to be made up, with singles at the front, each made from two halves each, and twin wheels at the rear axle, put together with two two-part wheels each, and two hub parts added to the finished pair. Each wheel slips over its respective axle, and is secured in place by a central cap. There is a choice of steps when completing the lower portion of the load bed sides, as they can be built either vertically to make maximum use of the floor area, or with the lower sections flipped down to form seats for the transport of troops. This is accomplished by using a different set of supports, fitted vertically for stowed, or diagonally below for deployed to support the weight of the troops. Both options then have the five tilt hoops fixed into the tops of their pillars at the end of the build to finish off. The base model is finished off with front light with clear lenses, side lights, door handles, bonnet clasps, wing mirrors, windscreen parts and wipers, plus two large hooks on the top of the chassis rail ends, and a pair of circular wing mirrors on long stalks. Kitchen Equipment There are three portable ovens that are built from a high number of parts that includes the heating mechanism, control knobs, handles and doors that can be posed open or closed, arranging them along the front of the load bed against the headboard. A single shallow stowage box is made up from five parts, building a larger multi-drawer unit with a working surface on top that sits on the right side of the bed, with three detailed jerry cans made up from four parts each on the opposite side. A large cooking pan with twin handles is made up and installed in a two-part frame to keep it stable, and it is accompanied by two large cylindrical pots with domed lids and twin handles, plus a large handle on the lid. These are placed on the floor or on one of the open ovens as you see fit, adding utensils such as spoons, a two-art ladle and knives to add interest to the area. All this detail is best built, painted and installed in the back of the truck before adding the five tilt support frames mentioned earlier, as otherwise it will complicate the task. Markings There are three decal options on the included sheet, all of which are in a WWII Olive Drab scheme, with mild variations in the markings. From the box you can build one of the following: Decals are by ICM’s usual partners, which is a guarantee of good registration, sharpness and colour density, with a thin gloss carrier film cut close to the printed areas. Conclusion Given that an army marches on its stomach, kitchen trucks were a crucial part of military planning, and an everyday sight, even dangerously near the front. This kit is well-detailed and provides accessories to improve the realism, leaving you to build and paint it in a realistic manner. Highly recommended. Available from all good model shops now. Review sample courtesy of

The BM-13 'Katyusha' multiple rocket launcher was first deployed by the Red Army during the German invasion ('Operation Barbarossa') during WW2. Mounted on trucks, these highly mobile rocket batteries made up for their inherent inaccuracy with their capacity to deliver a saturation bombardment of an enemy position, before rapidly relocating to avoid retaliatory strikes. Particularly effective as a psychological weapon, the howling noise made as they were fired en masse earned them a fearsome reputation with the Germans. In June 1938, the first prototype multiple rocket launcher was developed in Chelyabinsk, Russia, firing modified 132mm M-132 rockets broadside from ZiS-5 trucks. These proved unstable, however one of the engineers, a man by the name of Galkovskiy, proposed mounting the launch rails longitudinally, firing forward over the cab. The result was the BM-13 (BM = Boyevaya Mashina, or 'combat vehicle' for M-13 rockets). The design was relatively simple, consisting of racks of parallel rails on which rockets were mounted, with a folding frame to raise the rails to the desired trajectory. Each truck had 14 to 48 launchers. The M-13 rocket of the BM-13 system was 142cm (55.9in) long, 13.2cm (5.2in) in diameter and weighed 42kg (93lb). The first large-scale testing of the rocket launchers took place at the end of 1938, when rounds of various types were used. A salvo of rockets could completely straddle a target at a range of 5,500 metres (3.4 mi); the artillery branch, however, were not particularly impressed with the results. It took the best part of an hour to load and fire 24 rockets, while a conventional howitzer could fire 95 to 150 shells in the same time. Further tests with various rockets were conducted throughout 1940, and the BM-13-16 with launch rails for sixteen rockets was authorized for production. Unfortunately, only forty launchers were built before Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941. Initially, secrecy concerns prevented the military designation of the launchers from being known even by the soldiers who operated them. They were called by various code names, including 'Kostikov guns', 'Guards Mortars', and 'flutes'. The name BM-13 was only allowed into secret documents in 1942, and remained classified until after the end of WW2. Because they were marked with the letter K (for Voronezh Komintern Factory), Red Army troops adopted a nickname from Mikhail Isakovsky's popular wartime song, "Katyusha", about a girl longing for her boyfriend, who is on military service (Katyusha is the Russian equivalent of Katie, an endearing diminutive form of the name Katherine). As an aside, here's the actual song - you might have already heard the tune without necessarily knowing what it was called or what it was about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SLvtP6KMUM German troops coined the term Stalinorgel ("Stalin's organ"), after Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, due to the launch array resembling a pipe organ. As a result of their success in the first month of the invasion - most notably during the defence of Smolensk in July 1941 - mass production was ordered and the development of other models proceeded. The Katyusha was relatively inexpensive and could be manufactured in light industrial installations which did not have the heavy equipment to build conventional artillery gun barrels. By the end of 1942, more than 3000 Katyusha launchers of all types had been built; by the end of the war total production is believed to have reached in excess of 10000 units. The truck-mounted Katyushas were initially installed on ZiS-6 6×4 trucks, as well as the two-axle ZiS-5 and ZiS-5V. In 1941, a small number of BM-13 launchers were mounted on STZ-5 artillery tractors. A few were also tried on KV tank chassis as the KV-1K, but this was abandoned as a needless waste of heavy armour. From 1942, with the advent of Lend-Lease, they were also mounted on various British, Canadian and U.S. trucks; in this case they were sometimes referred to as BM-13S. The cross-country performance of the Studebaker US6 2½ ton truck was so good that it became the standard mounting in 1943, with the designation BM-13N ('Normalizovanniy', or 'standardized'). More than 1800 of this version were manufactured by the end of WW2. After the end of WW2, BM-13s were based on Soviet-built ZiL-151 trucks. A battery of BM-13-16 launchers comprised four firing vehicles, two reload trucks and two technical support trucks, with each firing vehicle having a crew of six. Firing was initiated by way of an electric primer provided by the truck's own battery system. Reloading was executed in 3–4 minutes, although the standard procedure was to switch to a new position some 10 km away due to the ease with which the battery's location could be identified by the enemy. Where possible the firing vehicles travelled to their new firing location with the lower rack already loaded. Four BM-13 launchers could fire a salvo in 7–10 seconds that delivered 4.35 tons of high explosives over a 400,000-square-metre (4,300,000 sq ft) area, making its power roughly equivalent to that of 72 conventional artillery guns. ************************* I enjoyed this kit more than I initially feared I would, despite the challenges put in my way by the kit makers PST. Certainly the relatively small scale (1:72) contributed to the 'fun', but at least the moulding quality was for the most part pretty good. The instructions could do with a bit more clarity though, and a couple of reasonably detailed figures would have been a welcome inclusion. The WIP thread is here should you wish to peruse it. Anyway, without further ado, here are a small (large!) collection of photos of the finished article, hope you enjoy them - comments and criticisms all welcome, as ever! Thanks to all who followed the build with comments and suggestions, all very much appreciated