Eduard Brassin 1/48 Mk.81 Bomb 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. Many AMS modelers will collect the relevant Eduard photo-etch sets for a given project, but they'll also go out and gather specific resin enhancements as well. Eduard has stepped up with a new product line to complement their photo-etched detail series - Brassin. Brassin is a play on words with Brass and Resin, and in many sets in this series, the resin details also include a set of photo-etch as well.

In this release, Eduard provides a set of six of Mk.81 250 pound general purpose bombs which were also released in their Brassin weapons set for the A-4 Skyhawk. This set consists of six complete bomb units, each finely cast in gray resin and consisting with the main shell and a separately cast tail assembly. The set also includes six sets of four different fuse types with as well as set of stencils which have placement instructions included in the set.

If you want to want another nicely rendered weapon to bomb up your next early Vietnam War aircraft model, this is the weapon set you're looking for. The Mk.81 was not used extensively and was discontinued early in its service life because of the limited damage the weapon could produce. Ironically there was consideration to bring back the Mk.81 in recent years because the weapon could be used with minimal collateral damage but was abandoned again in favor of the small diameter bomb.

My sincere thanks to Eduard for this review sample!