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Plastic Ship Modeler 1995
The standard emerges

By: Shane Jenkins



The second year of Plastic Ship Modeller's run really set the standard for the following years. Plenty of good line drawings, sketches and the like (usually done by Dan as were the covers), with an improvement in photo quality and general production values. In addition reviews of both plastic and resin kits increased with a new section for photoetched items being added. 1995 also saw a welcome increase from 32 pages to 36 pages and the standard of writing was exemplary.

Plastic Ship Modeller's strength has always been the various series on naval colours. This year saw it really get started with a vengeance. In 1995/1 Richard Mellico's well researched and thought out article on the often contentious issue of scale colour prepared the way for the rest of the year. A three part series on WW2 Kreigsmarine camouflage covering in detail the various schemes that saw service and many that didn't across the whole navy (1995/2 - 1995/4). Al Ross tackled PT boat camouflage and Falk Pletscher looked at comouflage in the Italian Navy.

Modelling articles covering the following were also featured in this year: USN Deck Markings, HMAS Nestor, USS
Cheyenne/Wyoming, R.N. Fiume, IJN Hosho, building a 27C Essex carrier, Farragut destroyers, Mogami class cruisers - Kumano and Suzuya, USS Louisville, KMS Bremse and detailing fo'c'sles.

Merchant navy articles were also covered with American tugboats, Arundel Castle, SS Athenia and the Harriman type shipping board design 205 making an appearance.

With the emphasis on colour articles in Plastic Ship Modeler (now becoming more familiarly known as PSM), ship modellers began to approach the standard of reference in a magazine that other modelling genres take for granted.