ICM Modern Modern Soviet Air Armament

The kit

If you like to model Soviet/Russian aircraft and need additional or different armament for your projects, your only choice before this release by ICM was a couple of sets released by ICM in the early 1990s. For some reason the mainstream companies outside of the old Soviet block did not ventured into this market.

Inside there are 4 sprues, consisting of 96 parts molded in a brittle light grey plastic. Fourteen different missiles and one unguided rocket can be made. They are:

Missile	No. of Copies	No. of Parts per MIssile	Kit Part No.s
Kh-25MR "NATO - AS-10 Karen"	2	2	34, 35
Kh-58 "NATO - AS-11 Kilter"	2	2	29, 30
R-2US "NATO - AA-1 Alkali"	2	3	23, 24 (x2)
R-3S "NATO - AA-2 Atoll"	2	1	38
R-3R "NATO - AA-2 Atoll"	2	1	37
R-23MT "NATO - AA-7 Apex"	2	1	8
R-23MR "NATO - AA-7 Apex"	2	1	7
R-27TE "NATO - AA-10 Alamo"	2	3	9, 11 (x2)
R-27RE "NATO - AA-10 Alamo"	2	3	10, 11 (x2)
R-40R "NATO - AA-6 Acrid"	2	4	1, 2, 3 (x2)
R-60 "NATO - AA-8 Aphid"	2	1	22
R-73 "NATO - AA-11 Archer"	2	1	36
R-98T "NATO - AA-3 Anab"	2	3	5, 6 (x2)
R-98R "NATO - AA-3 Anab"	2	3	4, 6 (x2)
S-24	2	1	39

Also included are parts for the FAB-500M54 and FAB-500M62 bombs, UB-16, UB-32 and B-8 rocket pods.

Inspection of the parts shows that this set leaves a lot to be desired. The majority of the parts have flash and seam lines - prominent on most parts, on others not as much. And ICM has gone one step further than its contemporaries towards making construction as difficult as possible. Not only will you have to clean up the seams created when joining the body halves together, but there is also another seam running down each body half piece - leaving you with four seams to remove, instead of the expected two. How ICM managed to do this I have no idea!

Detail on the parts is sparse. Panel lines are limited to those for control surfaces and warheads. All the panel lines shown on the beautiful painting guide on the back of the box do not exist for the most part. What engraving there is tends to be overly large and not very petite. On most of the separate fins the engraving for the control surfaces is quite indistinct - looking almost as if ICM did not allow the plastic to cool sufficiently, thereby allowing it to flow a bit and fill in the lines.

The fins themselves are excessively thick for the most part and will need sanding, especially on the leading edges, to get a more acceptable look.

Many of the Soviet/Russian missile designs have the rocket exhaust through nozzles on the side of the missile body versus the more common rear exit. Unfortunately ICM have decided to not bother with the bulges and nozzles that would be found on the Kh-25MR AS-10 Karen, R-2US AA-1 Alkali, and R-40R AA-6 Acrid missiles. You will need to add these yourself if you want something a bit more accurate.

There are no locating pins on any of the parts and the fit is not great. The fins on the multi-part missiles, such as the R-40R, are designed to fit into slots in the body. I found that the best way to get a good fit here was to fill the slots with some plastic rod, sand smooth, then remove the tabs from the fins and butt join the fins to the missile body with glue.

No decals are included, which is inexcusable and misleading, especially when the box top artwork clearly shows serial numbers and other markings on the missiles. And if you want to place your armament on those nice stands shown in the artwork - forget about it! They aren't included.

When comparing the missiles in common in this set with those contained in the ICM sets most of the missiles are quite similar in size, except for the Kh-58 missile, where there is a big difference in size as well as shape. Based on dimensional info found on the web, the ICM Kh-58 is substantially undersize, while the ICM version is substantially oversize.

So which manufacturer has the more accurate KH-58? That's hard to say, so I can only assume that the ICM version is the better. The ICM set was released back when accurate dimensional specifications for the Kh-58 was lacking. With ICM being based in the Ukraine, I expect that they have ready access to the real item to get more accurate dimensional data over what was available to ICM fifteen or so years ago.

Conclusion

So, the lack of detail, fit problems, and no decals seriously undermine the value of this set. Though ICM has provided a rather complete set that can be used for a variety of aircraft, I feel that the only reason one would want to purchase this set would be to get the subjects not found in the ICM kits - the R-2US (AA-1 Alkali), R-40 (AA-6 Acrid) and R-98 (AA-3 Anab) air-to-air missiles, the S-24 rockets, and the rocket pods and bombs. For anything else get the ICM versions and save yourself a lot of grief.

Addendum: 12/April/2020

Parts of this set have now been eclipsed by many newer products that have come on the market since this set was first released, circa 1999, some 20 years ago, making this set pretty much useless. The only good thing in this set is the box's artwork. In my opinion you'd have to be desperate to even consider purchasing this set.

	Modern Modern Soviet Air Armament kit no. 72101
			Review by Al Magnus - one72guy(at)gmail(dot)com