When the United States first started its bombing campaign in North Vietnam, it discovered that its ability to combat the sophisticated air defense system was very limited and early on it became apparent that the AGM-45 Shrike anti-radiation missile had a number of serious limitations, particularly in its range, small warhead and limited seeker. In effort to overcome some of these limitations, the Navy worked with General Dynamics to develop an air-launched version of the Navy’s RIM-66 Standard surface-to-air missile. By using an existing missile platform, development proceeded fairly quickly and the result was the AGM-78 Standard ARM (anti-radiation missile). Early versions of the AGM-78 were actually outfitted with the same seeker head as the Shrike, but as the Standard ARM had a much larger warhead, a larger engine and a gimbaled seeker head, it was more flexible and effective than the Shrike.

For those of you who might be skeptical of building a snap tite kit (too easy, not detailed enough, kids toys) this would be the perfect opportunity to put your uncertainty aside and try one out. I had some reservations myself but after watching my 18 year old son bang one of these out in a weekend and it looking purely awesome on the shelf, I though I could do no worse.

I chose to build mine as a representation of the Las Vegas Metro Police Departments Ford F-150. Truthfully they do no currently have any Raptors in inventory but I thought this would make a great fantasy vehicle that is oh so close to the real thing. Included is a picture of the patrol unit I was trying to emulate. Being as such I need to add a few things to the model like light bar, radio, shotgun, push bumper, donuts, etc. The decals I made for the unit where done on the laptop and printed with an HP printer on clear decal stock. Obviously none of these items came from the Revell kit.