Mk.84 2000lb Bombs
Mosquito FB Mk. VI Nose Guns
Bazooka Rocket Launchers for P-40
AIM-9B Air-to-Air Missile

Eduard BRASSIN, 1/32 scale

Reviewed by Michael Drover

Eduard's 1/48 AIM-4D Missile Set is available online from Squadron.com

History

The Mark 84 2000lb bomb is an unguided bomb that was first deployed in the Vietnam War. It is the second largest bomb only surpassed os size by the appropriately names Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MPAB) bomb at approximately ~22,000 lb. The Mk.84 has been used in a variety of theatres including those where F-117’s dropped them with the Paveway III guidance units. In this theatre they become know as ‘the Hammer’ due to the large blast radius and high level of damage they caused.*

The Mk.84 has been carried by numerous aircraft and are still in service today with a variety of guidance kits installed.

First Look

This item arrives in the standard blister pack that we’ve become accustomed to from Eduard and will be a very simple set to construct. The builder has a choice of either standard or extended fuses to chose from. Alignment off the rear fins will be straight forward as the rear joint is essentially a male/female connection. Just make sure you use some slow setting glue so the fins are correctly aligned with the bomb body. Some green paint and a few decals and you’re done.

Conclusion

A simple and straight forward replacement or addition to the ordnance for large scale modern subject builders. I’ve found that the larger a kit becomes in scale the apparent fidelity of the parts is lost in the plastic castings. This Eduard set overcomes that as the detail in this scale looks fantastic. These will look great hanging off a big scale Phantom. Get them if you like your subjects big!

First Look

Eduard supplies some really nice details sets in their range but every so often a set comes along where you look at it and think a horologist must have designed it. I thought the same thing when I saw this set. Everything that you’d ever want to replace in the gun nose Tamiya kit (if you needed to) is there. The entire gun bay forward of the gun bulkhead is there.

Four .303 guns are supplied including all of the ancillary equipment that goes with each one including the ammo feed chutes, gun breeches and ammunition canisters. Each of these separate items is a detail set in itself with various quantities of photo-etch supplied for each sub-assembly. Additional wire of various sizes is needed to plumb the guns appropriately. In the nose section you’ll find some more etch and resin parts for the gun camera. Once assembled and painted this will look excellent.

Conclusion

If you’re not into scratch building then this detail set is most definitely for you. I think this will surpass the detail of the Tamiya item id that is at all possible. It will certainly add some fantastic detail to this area. Be sure to have a steady hand though as many of the parts are small and time and care will need to be taken when assembling it. This detail set for the Tamiya Mozzie this is a set to get.

Recommended

First Look

This pack arrives a bit more dressed up than the usual Eduard blister pack. Found carefully sandwiched between foam pieces in their Brassin card board boxes this set will help you to enhance you next 1/32 P-40. This is another fairly simple set with the parts count kept reasonably low. Loaded and empty end tubes are supplied in resin as are the mounting posts. Photo-etch is used for the mounting straps that wrap around the launch tunes which completes the simple assembly. No decals are required on this. A small tool is provided to seat the straps that wrap around the fuselage into the gaps between each bazooka body. It will be a handy tool.

Conclusion

I’ve not seen these bazooka tubes fitted to P-40’s so I did a Google image search to find some. I did find some but I don’t think that they were used that often. I have seen them mounted to P-47’s so they may be useable on that aircraft too.

As with any model you build it’s always handy to have reference photos for the subject being built and it will be necessary for those looking for a P-40 subject to mount these on. As usual they are another nice weapon set from Eduard and an item   I don’t recall seeing in any kit.

Recommended

History

Mark Davies first looked at the 1/72 scale AIM-9B’s from Eduard back in 2014 and supplied a handy usage history that you can read here as well as the rest of his article. In short, it’s been around a while and has shot down a lot of stuff.

First Look

Suitable ordnance for large scale subjects was hard to come by before Eduard started releasing their Brassin sets. Construction and painting of this set will be extremely easy as the parts count is low. The main body including the rear fins is one piece with the only work that needs to be done is the correct alignment of the forward guidance fins and the decision to use either the resin seeker head cover for a parked aircraft or the clear resin item for the seeker head. A standard Eduard assembly and painting guide is provided with colours described in the Gunze Aqueous/Mr Color ranges.

Conclusion

Other 32nd scale Sidewinder sets are available but the price of these I’ve seen. With simple assembly and paint these first generation sidewinders will look good hanging on a large scale US jet.

Each of these sets come with the standard assembly guide supplied by Eduard. The instructions follow a sensible assembly procedure all provided via computer rendered images. Paints are called out in the Gunze range and the decal placement guide is also supplied on the instructions.

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Thanks to Eduard for the samples and images.

Review Text Copyright © 2016 by Michael Drover
Page Created 15 November, 2016
Last updated 15 November, 2016

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