Sheet:

Euro Decals 32001: Operation Telic Tonkas

Units: See Review

Price

£19.95 from Fantasy Printshop.

Reviewer:

Scott Van Aken

Another new sheet from EuroDecals is this huge sheet covering the Tornado GR.4s that participated in Operation Telic, the British involvement in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Apparently 'Tonka' is another euphemism for the Tornado and one I'd not heard about before seeing this sheet.

There is really only one quality kit of the ground attack Tornado, and that is by Revell. Now there is an older Revell kit that is so-so, but the newer one is a real work of art and one that you should use for this sheet.

The sheet itself is superbly printed and has no registration glitches that I could see. It is also huge, completely covering the platen for my scanner.  There are full stencil and insignia markings for one aircraft and separate serials and nose art for 18. Apparently the British went and applied nose art to all their 'in country' aircraft that were assembled for the war. While perhaps not as extensive as that applied to the Desert Storm aircraft, they are, nonetheless, nicely done and there are some excellent options.

The instructions are in full color and provide a detailed data placement marking guide on the back half of the cover sheet. The other sheet has just the placement of the various nose art decals.

 

I have shown just one of these two pages so that you can get an idea of how they are portrayed.

What I have done is show the decal sheet itself in a larger size that what I normally portray. It allows you to get more of an idea of just what is covered in this monster sheet. Below is a listing of the names that are provided.

ZD 715, 'Alarm Maiden/Here comes the Sun'
ZA 554, 'Born Fighter'
ZA 458, 'Mean One'
ZA 589, 'Deadly Nightshade'
ZG 711, 'Oh Nell'
ZA 542, 'Danger Mouse/Dallas Dhu'
ZA 164, 'It's Show Time'
ZA 600, 'Hot Stuff'
ZG 707, 'B.A.B.S.'
ZD 850, 'Rects Controllers Dream'
ZA 553, 'Dishy Intel'
ZA 606, 'Big Deal'
ZG 775, 'The Macallan'
ZA 560, 'Brave Coq/Benromach'
ZG 714, 'Truffle Snufflers/It's a Recce Thing'
ZD 740, 'Desert Raven'
ZG 727, 'Look'n for Twouble'
ZA 592, no name but a shark mouth and obviously from 2 Sq.

Some of these names follow the code letters on the aircraft and others don't, which accounts for some of the rather odd names.

This really is a superb sheet and one that shows a lot of attention to detail and research.

October 2005

Thanks to Fantasy Printshop for the review sheet. You can find this and other products by  visiting their website.

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