Panda-Hobby 1/35 Bumerang IFV Object K-17 Kit First Look

By Michael Benolkin

First Look

Military observers from around the world watched as the Russian Army displayed a new family of combat vehicles at the 2015 May Day Parade in Moscow to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of the Great Patriotic War (World War II). These new vehicles represent a new approach to armament, survivability, and modular reuse of systems across platforms (similar to the what failed Future Combat Systems was supposed to bring to the US Army). One of these designs is the Bumerang (Boomerang) which is another attempt at replacing the BTR armored personnel series.

While the BTR-80 was a successful design that entered service in time for the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, its replacement came along at about the time the Soviet Union collapsed. The BTR-90 was deemed too expensive and an interim BTR-82 configuration was produced as a stop-gap solution. The Bumerang does not follow the previous BTR series designs and instead resembles more of a LAV/Stryker vehicle with a taller interior and associated taller silhouette. Like the other vehicles in the Armata/Kurganets series, the Bumerang also employs an unmanned turret configuration for each of its variants.

Panda Hobby is producing the latest Russian combat vehicles with this Bumerang being the latest in the series. The kit is molded in tan styrene and presented on five parts trees plus upper and lower hull, one tree of clear parts, one set of black rubber (vinyl) tires, and one fret of photo-etched parts. Among the kit's features and options:

• Detailed suspension/drive train
• Nicely detailed hull
• Photo-etched grilles on the engine deck
• Positionable driver's hatch
• Positionable rear compartment overhead hatches
• Clear periscopes
• Detailed turret

Of all of the new Russian vehicles produced in kit form, the wheeled Bumerang will be the easiest to build as you're not assembling a number of track links for the tracked vehicles. This is the Bumerag infantry fighting vehicle (IFV) which is armed with anti-tank missiles and a 30mm main gun.

The decals provide the stylized Russian star on either side of the parade vehicles.

While this kit represents one of the early production vehicles that appeared in the Moscow May Day Parade, it provides a solid foundation for updates once the type is seen in the field or exported to client nations.

My sincere thanks to Panda-Hobby for the review sample.