The RS-82 rocket was an unguided air-to-ground rocket developed by the Soviet Union in the 1930s and used extensively in World War II. The rockets were pretty small, only around 3 inches in diameter and 24 inches long and like most early air-to-ground unguided weapons, their accuracy was questionable at best. As a result they were usually fired in one salvo. They were used on almost every aircraft flown by the Red Air Force during World War II and there are a lot of photographs on the Internet of various aircraft with them mounted under the wings.

Brengun continues its line of aircraft weapons/accessories with this set, which provides 8 missile/launch rail sets. The missile bodies are molded as part of the launch rail with a separate photoetch fret of the missile fins (4 per rocket with extras - fortunately). The resin castings are pretty small, delicate, and include extra mounting stands for the missile rails. As the rails and missiles are so small, my set had a lot of flash around the parts that had to be cleaned up. Be careful when removing the flash around the rails, as the cast mounting stands are very thin and are easily broken. I tried to keep as many of the original stands as possible, but I still broke a couple when trimming the flash.

Once the flash has been removed and the resin parts cleaned up, the next step is to attach the missile fins. These are very tiny but using photoetch scissors in most cases I was able to trim the attachment points pretty close to the fin. There is a photoetch line on one corner of each fin and this shows you how far in to mount the fins. The fins mount into thin slots on the aft end of the missile, so I would recommend using thin medium-setting superglue to attach them. The fins mount in a “+” configuration, so I mounted one set of opposing fins first to make sure they were 180 degrees from each other. Next I attached a third fin at 90 degrees to the other two and then I attached the fourth fin 180 degrees from the third fin.

There are no painting instructions with the set, and I was not able to find very many color photographs online about the RS-82 rockets. In most photographs the rockets appear to be a dark color, but they are usually under the wing in the shadows. I did find one color photograph purporting to show a missile and rail from a downed Russian aircraft where the rail looked like it was unpainted metal and rocket was a dark green color, so I airbrushed the launch rails steel and then painted the missiles Tamiya Olive Green. I sealed everything with Testor’s clear flat to protect the paint. Unfortunately, the missiles were finished long before the airplane I was building to mount them, so that step still remains. Since I snapped a couple of the mounting stands, I am going to replace them all either with spares provided or perhaps with some fine wire (and by drilling mounting holes).

This is a nice set and will add some interest to your one of your World War II Soviet Air Force aircraft. The castings are nice, but delicate, and the photoetch parts are small, so I recommend this set to modelers with some experience with photoetch and small parts. Recommended!

Thank you to Brengun for the sample set and to IPMS/USA for letting me review it.