The M117 is a general purpose 750 lb. (unguided) bomb used by the United States military starting in the 1950s and continuing up through Operation Desert Storm, Iraqi Freedom and Afghanistan. It was used extensively in the Vietnam War being carried by everything from F-100s, to F-111s, to B-52s. The bomb consists of a bomb body containing the explosives, one of several different tail assemblies and fuses.

Eduard has issued three different M117 sets. This set represents the M117 with the later version of the low-drag tail assembly primarily for use in medium to high altitude deliveries. This version of the M117 was used in Operation Desert Storm when USAF B-52s dropped over 40,000 M117s.

The set consists of six bomb bodies, six tail assemblies and three different types of fuses. As is standard with Eduard’s US bomb sets, there are six standard nose fuses, six fuse extenders and six conical nose caps. After washing the castings to remove any molding agent residue, the first step of construction is to cut the bomb bodies and tail assemblies away from the pour stubs. Learning my lesson from the my set of M117s, I used my trusty old Xacto saw blade to cut the parts from the pour stubs so as to minimize the chance of a crooked cut on either a tail assembly or a bomb body. I did much better this time around and only had a little filling to do on a couple of the bombs. As with the other M117 set, when you join the six bomb bodies to six tail assemblies take care to ensure that the bombs are straight and that the tail assemblies are mounted in an “x” configuration when compared to the mounting lugs before the superglue sets or else you will end up with a very non-aerodynamic bomb.

As with most US bombs, painting is simple – overall Olive Drab. After a quick coat of gloss, the decals were applied, three per bomb! I like the curved decals that are provided to make the yellow nose band, denoting this to be a live weapon, but care needs to be taken in aligning the nose band so that the ends of the decal meet without much overlap as the decals are very thin and in some cases translucent. I found that Model Master Insignia Yellow was a match for the yellow decals and I used it to repair any small tears or any gaps where the decals did not quite close. Once decaling is done, a quick shot of flat and then the desired nose fuse can be installed.

Once again, Eduard has released a very nice set of weapons that allows the modeler to portray different weapons than are included in the normal kit. Highly recommended.

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