The CBU-97 is an unguided cluster bomb unit used by the US Air Force. The CBU-97 weighs around 1,000 lbs. and consists of a munition dispenser which contains ten BLU-108 sub-munitions. Each BLU-108 is an independent unit with its own sensors and projectiles which are designed to kill armored or soft skinned vehicles by attacking from above where the armor/skin is thinnest, or non-existent. The CBU-97 can be carried by all of the USAF’s current fighters and bombers.

Dragon, in its Six-Day War series, has already produced a 1/35 scale kit of an Israel Defense Forces M3 halftrack, and now another interesting variant is available for modelers. This new kit features an M3 with Nord Aviation SS-11 wire-guided antitank missiles, which was done to strengthen the offensive capability of IDF halftracks. This kit will attract a lot of interest when sitting in your model display.

Opening the Box

This sturdy Dragon box is filled with lots of plastic, a lot of it going to the spares bin.

The kit includes:

• 15 sprues molded in light grey plastic
• One sprue molded in clear plastic
• One small square of photo-etch parts
• Small brass length of chain
• Slide molded drive and idler wheels packaged in a separate baggy

The kit also includes decals for two vehicles:

Jean-Christophe Carbonel was born in 1959 and wrote his first modelling article in 1977. He graduated from the University of Paris I: Pantheon-Sorbonne in 1979 and followed up with a diploma from Sciences Po in 1981. He currently is a senior auditor at Le Groupe La Poste. His first solo work in English language was in 1991 for the British magazine Collecting Scale Models. He admits that part of his knowledge of the English language came from reading the Airfix instruction sheets, which were, at the time still English-only. Since then, he has pursued a writing career specializing in model kit history and in the history of aviation projects, prototypes, and early experimentals. Jean-Christophe has more recently specialized in French designs of all eras. Writing for various magazines on both sides of the Channel, French Secret Projects 2 is at least his thirteenth book.