Earlier this year Eduard released an F-4 Phantom weapons set to complement Academy’s new F-4J kit. The set actually consists of five Eduard Brassin sets: 672030 AIM-7E Sparrow missiles (4); 672036 Aim-9B Sidewinder missiles (4); and three sets of 672087 Mk. 82 bombs (6 in each). As each of these sets has been previously been reviewed, I don’t want to repeat earlier reviews, but I want to mention a few things I encountered in my build.

Starting with the Mk. 82’s, they were by far the easiest part of the build as construction was limited to removing them from the casting blocks, cleaning up the separation point, painting and decaling them. I did have to replace one fin as it was short shot, but out of 18 bombs with 4 fins each, I was not about to complain. The fin shape was easily reproduced with thin sheet styrene and once painted I was not able to distinguish which one was the replacement fin. As the bombs are overall Olive Drab painting was easy. Each bomb has 4 decals, including the yellow nose band denoting a live high explosive round. Fitting the nose band decals is a bit tricky as they need to be at the extreme tip of the nose or they will be crooked or won’t meet. I was able to get most of them to meet and make a complete band, but there are always a couple of stubborn ones that won’t quite close. I painted the gaps with Testor’s Insignia Yellow, which was a perfect match. When decaling, I discovered that it appears the numbers for decals 1 and 3 are reversed between the instruction sheet and the decal sheet. I went by the picture in the instruction sheet and matched the decals to the picture. Once the bombs are decaled, you need to decide how you are going to mount them as this most likely will determine which of the nose fuses you use. If you want to use the daisy cutter fuse extender, the bombs will need to be on a tripe ejector rack (TER) or the front portion of a multiple ejector rack (MER) as there is not enough spacing between the front and rear sets of bombs on the MER for the fuse extenders on the rear bombs. I wanted to show a loaded up bomb-truck Phantom, so I used the standard fuses on all 18 bombs.

As the set does not include any pylons, MERs or TERs, so depending on what aircraft and what kit you are using, you may need to dig into the parts box for these. I stashed away several of each of the Hasegawa weapons sets years ago, and since the Fujimi F-4 kit I was building did not include any bomb racks, I used the MERs and TERs from one of these sets. In Vietnam Navy F-4s almost always flew with the AIM-9 rails mounted on the inboard wing pylons, so I assembled the kit pylons and AIM-9 rails, then superglued on the TERs. Unfortunately, I forgot the short pylon extensions that went between the pylons and the TERs in order to ensure clearance for the AIM-9s, so you will note that my AIM-9’s are not mounted – they just won’t fit!

For the MERs, the Fujimi kit does include a set of outer wing pylons separate from the ones molded with the wing tanks, so the MERs were superglued directly to these pylons. One glitch I encountered is that the mounting points on the Hasegawa MERs and TERs are not compatible with the cast on mounting lugs on the Mk. 82s so I ended up cutting off the lugs in order to get the bombs to stay on the racks.

The Sparrow missiles are great; just take your time removing the guidance fins from the casting blocks and cleaning up the mounting pin and you will have no trouble putting these fins on. Check your model first as most 1/72 F-4 kits just have an indentation in the fuselage trough representing the slots where one set of fins slides up into the fuselage, so you will only need to mount three of the guidance fins and then will have to cut off the corresponding rear fin in order for the missiles to sit flush under the jet. I discovered that the front missile troughs on the Fujimi kit are either further forward or a little shorter than necessary as the outboard guidance fins interfered with the bottom of the intake splitter plate when I went to mount the front missiles. As everything was painted when I discovered this problem, I elected to depict my Phantom with just the rear two missiles loaded. Please note that the different color bands on the Sparrows are important. As discussed with the Mk. 82, yellow bands denote live rounds, so if you are outfitting a jet for combat, use the yellow bands. The blue bands denote training rounds and would not be carried into combat.

The AIM-9 Sidewinders are neat little kits, but be careful with the rear fins as they are appropriately very thin and easily bent or broken. The photo-etch front guidance fins were the most difficult of the build initially as I had a hard time getting them seated. After a few frustrating tries, I discovered that once I got the fin where I wanted it I could gently press it into place using the tip of my fingernail. Remember to leave a slight gap between the fin and the fuselage as the fins are not flush with the missile body in real life, also you will need room to slide the forward yellow band decal up under the fins. Painting is simple for most AIM-9Bs – overall gloss white. I did deviate from the instructions when painting the seeker head as the instructions say paint it gloss black, but the actual seeker is a clear dome covering the infrared seeker, so I prefer to dip the tip of each missile into the top of my Chrome Silver paint jar to get a nice shiny seeker head. The set also supplies 4 nose covers for the AIM-9’s which are almost always fitted unless the aircraft is ready to go flying. These are mounted by sawing off a small section of the nose of the missile and then butt joining the covers to the missiles.

This set gives you lots of options for arming up a Vietnam War Phantom, or a number of other aircraft of the same time period as these weapons were actually carried by a number of different aircraft both during and after the Vietnam War. For example the AIM-9Bs were carried by the F-8 Crusader, the F-104 Starfighter and occasionally even by the F-105 Thunderchief. F-15s and F-14s even carried the AIM-7E at times, we launched them from the F-14 as part of our missile proficiency exercises in the 1980’s (saving the AIM-7Ms and Fs for real world use). The Mk. 82s were carried by just about every fighter or attack aircraft in the US inventory, including A-1 Skyraiders, A-4 Skyhawks, A-6 Intruders, A-7 Corsairs, F-100 Super Sabres, F-105 Thunderchiefs, the F-111 and others. This set is also a great deal as you get 5 Brassin sets for a list price of $30, whereas separately the Mk. 82s retail for $13 each, the AIM-7s for $13 and the AIM-9s for $10. The set saves you $33!

A quick note about my Phantom – during one of its deployments, Air Wing 11 was directed to experiment to see if an air-to-ground paint scheme would decrease the visibility and therefore vulnerability of its aircraft to ground fire, so it had many of its aircraft overpainted at Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines on the way to Vietnam. VF-213, one of the two F-4 squadrons in the air wing had all of its F-4s repainted green on top as part of the experiment. It appears that the paint shops used what green paint they had on hand as the accounts I have read indicate a wide variety of colors as some aircraft were overall FS 34102 while others had 2 or even 3 shades of green on them. Also there was a wide variety of radome colors as I have seen photos of VF-213’s green Phantoms with overall black radomes, white radomes, tan radomes and even a couple with half and half radomes, black on top and white on the bottom! It was quickly discovered that while the green color apparently did help somewhat overland, maneuvering and spotting dark colored aircraft on the deck of an aircraft carrier at night was very difficult if not hazardous and the experiment was not repeated.

This is a great set from Eduard and most highly recommended for anyone with an interest in arming up US (and many other nations) jets of the 60’s, 70’s or 80’s.

Thank you to Eduard for the review sample and thank you to IPMS-USA for letting me review it.