Eduard 1/48 MiG-23 Armament Detail Set First Look

By Michael Benolkin

First Look

Eduard from the Czech Republic is easily the most prolific producer of aftermarket details. Period. Their series of photo-etched detail sets have brought additional fidelity to otherwise bland subjects, and have taken even the best-produced models and kicked them up a notch or two with details that cannot be produced with injection-molded plastic.

In this release, they tackle an oldie but goodie. Many, many moons ago, AMT/ERTL released the only MiG-23 Flogger ever to be released in 1/48 scale. The kit has appeared in a Hobbycraft boxing and more recently in an Italeri boxing, but it is still the same tooling.

While Eduard is tackling other kit details in additional releases, one area that is most welcome is an update to the MiG-23's missiles. The Flogger is typically armed with the R-23 (AA-7 Apex) and R-60 (AA-8 Aphid) missiles. The R-23R (radar-guided) and R-23T (infra-red seeking) missiles are carried only under the wing glove pylons while the R-60s are typically carried on pylons under the fuselage.

While the kit's missiles represented the best detail that could be gleened from fuzzy black and white photos, a great deal of information on these weapons is now available in the public domain and as a result, the missiles are not quite as accurate.

This set provides a complete set of replacement fins for the kit's missile bodies and additional airframe details to make these missiles look great. To aid in getting the fins into proper position, Eduard provides a pair of jigs to get the rear (larger) fins into place so that you can easily align the front fins from there. One jig handles the R-23 airframe, the other the R-60.

This detail set provides enough parts for two R-23s and four R-60s. Note that the kit only provides two R-60s, but the aircraft was modified with a twin-rail configuration that allowed for four R-60s to be carried under the fuselage along with the two R-23s under the gloves. The parts are there should you want to mod your aircraft as well.

This is a nice enhancement to the Italeri kit and will definitely set off the completed model with more visible detail. Check out the MiG-23 interior detail set (reviewed here), the exhaust nozzle set reviewed here,and the exterior detail set (reviewed here).

My sincere thanks to Eduard for this review sample!