Tamiya 1/48 A-10 Thunderbolt II

[jamboseven]

Good morning Folks,

I got given a pristine (just smells of many many years in a loft) 1/48 Tamiya A-10 Thunderbolt last week.

So was having a good look at it out of the bags last night and really fancied bringing it a bit more up to date.

I see there are quite a few different resin parts for the hobbyboss and the italeri kits.

I fully expect the hobbyboss kit to be a new mould but does anyone know if the italeri one is a Tamiya rebox?

I would like to put a new cockpit and wheel wells on mine as well as update its payload a bit

So does anybody know if any of these resin & photo etch sets are suitable for the 70's tamiya kit?

Cheers

Simon

[Bo hermansen]

The first thing that spring to mind is ."why"?, the Tamiya A-10 is a horrible kit

Try google this model and read about all its fault, the kit cannot be build to a normal A-10

since the kit is an early FDS airframe, no a production A-10

At the least you need to modify it several places to make a production aircraft

You will need to buy several Hasagawa weapon sets, since the stuff in the kit is useless

I would put it together an use it as a airbrush guniea pig, and then buy the Hobby Boss kit

If you insist on being a masochists ( you are a brave man ) then eduard makes a PE set for it:

http://www.hannants.co.uk/product/ED48328

Legend makes a update set if you can find it

Good luck

Bo

So was having a good look at it out of the bags last night and really fancied bringing it a bit more up to date.

I fully expect the hobbyboss kit to be a new mould but does anyone know if the italeri one is a Tamiya rebox?

I would like to put a new cockpit and wheel wells on mine as well as update its payload a bit

So does anybody know if any of these resin & photo etch sets are suitable for the 70's tamiya kit?

[Scarlet]

The Italeri kit is a new tool, not perfect, but not bad. I bought mine for £15 when it first came out, but now the price has risen to nearer the £25 mark, I'd go for the Hobbyboss kit instead.

Can't help with the Tamiya kit as I've never seen one in the flesh, I'd certainly build it if I had one and not get put off by it being based on an early A-10.

[Mike]

The guys are right sadly, but I've seen some built up that look quite nice. The "accepted" kit that's most accurate is the old Revell Monogram kit, although it still requires a lot of work to bring it up to modern standards. The Italeri kit is a bit of a wolf in sheep's clothing, as it looks nice on the surface, but has some issues, most notably (to me at least) in the fit of the turbine fronts. The Hobbyboss kits (there is a 2-seat prototype too!) looks good, but I believe it's been roundly slagged off too for reasons I can't remember.

If you fancy building the Tamiya kit anyway (and why shouldn't you - it was free!), have a read around, pick up some corrections if you want, and have at it... don't forget to post some WIP pics here

[Giorgio N]

I don't think there's anything designed for the tamiya kit apart from the abovementioned eduard set. You can of course try to adapt sets made for the monogram or other kits into the tamiya one. It's usually mainly a matter of sanding and cutting for the cockpit, for the wheel wells howver it can be more difficult and a set not designed for the same kit can throw the whole heigt of the model on the gear off.

As the tamiya kit represents a preproduction plane, I'd do one of those, they tested a number of colour schemes and some are very interesting.

[jamboseven]

Cheers Gents.

I knew it was old due to the instruction sheet having the little hints and tips and the cartoon sketches on it..

I remember in my much younger years building the matchbox 1/72 kit as a pre production model.

So that thought is in my mind now.

I think I will get a resin pre glass cockpit (make it fit) and maybe a seat for it and keep the rest as is.

(will it be too old school to put an Aces II seat in it?)

Keep the 70's look with all the bright warning symbols, panel markings and a set of proper Blue and Red Stars and bars on it.

Make a change from boring grey aircraft..

Simon

[Jennings Heilig]

The Tamiya kit is not a prototype or a pre-production per se, it's a Full Scale Development a/c. With very minor exceptions, it can be built OOTB as an early production A-10 (I've done it twice). It's not a horrible kit, it's just old.

Despite its raised panel lines and fit issues, the Monogram A-10 is far and away the most accurate kit of the airplane out there (in any scale). The Italeri kit has its own problems.

[Doug Rogers]

I made the Tamiya kit many years ago, before I knew anything about people not building kits because they weren't accurate, and it did make up into a good looking kit. I'm sure it can be enhanced with a few bits and bobs available these days, but with some TLC it can look great.

[Mike V]

Good morning Folks,

I got given a pristine (just smells of many many years in a loft) 1/48 Tamiya A-10 Thunderbolt last week.

So was having a good look at it out of the bags last night and really fancied bringing it a bit more up to date.

I see there are quite a few different resin parts for the hobbyboss and the italeri kits.

I fully expect the hobbyboss kit to be a new mould but does anyone know if the italeri one is a Tamiya rebox?

I would like to put a new cockpit and wheel wells on mine as well as update its payload a bit

So does anybody know if any of these resin & photo etch sets are suitable for the 70's tamiya kit?

Cheers

Simon

Though the Tamiya A-10 Kit is dated, it's not as bad as it's been made out to be. In fact, it's actually more accurately shaped than Italeri's more recent "VOID of any detail" A-10.

As Jennings said, it represents the FSD airframe, so it not only has none of the later updates LASTE-SATCOM updates, but also lacks the early A-10A updates as well; CHAFF & FLARE modules on the sponsons and lower wingtips.

I've built every 48th A-10 and can say that the Tamiya kit fits the best overall. Not much at all for cockpit and wheel well detail, but then again the Italeri is no better and it's a new tool! Not sure what AM cockpit will fit, but I've seen the Black Box cockpit used in a Tamiya A-10 build some years ago.

If interested, our “made for HB & Italeri” A-10 inlet/engine fan set will fit the Tamiya kit. If looking to update the Tamiya A-10 to a LASTE version, we also have a LASTE set that comes with the tube type ladder, which replaced the original square tube ladder. You’ll still need to source the wheel well sponson and Wingtip CHAFF/FLARE modules though.

Mike V

[Alan P]

It would be interesting to see how much of the Shaun Hull update set for the Monogram kit would fit the Tamiya, a lot of it is ECM fit so probably wouldn't need to be kit-specific. Do a Google search for shull24 and you should find it.

EDIT: looks like he's closed down for a time, sorry.

Edited October 2, 2011 by PHaTNesS

[lufbramatt]

made the tamiya kit years ago when i first got an airbrush, ended up really pleased with it as I freehanded all 3 colours on the colour scheme! It is an early kit but it makes up into an impressive model, biggest issue i had with it was the fuselage needed some plasticard shims added where the engine pod locates on the top otherwise the engines sit too low and you get a nasty step on the top of the fuselage.

Build it and enjoy it!

[Julien]

Flightpath do a PE set which would probably fit the Tamyia kit

http://www.djparkins.com/acatalog/1_48th_P...TO_Russian.html

Julien

[Tonka]

YES !

Buy the Revell-Monogram ones !

I do not like the way RM made the wing/pylons steps (or the marks where the pylons are to be attached) on the under wings, but it is the best A-10 till now, and up date to "C" with aftermarket sets. Dozens of details, decals, PE, for it , very wide selection for ordnances and very impressive model when finnished.

Good Luck

Tonka

[reddeathdrinker]

Looks like an A-10, and I'm not bothered by details! It's the Tamiya, just rescribed, and using Wolfpack decals.... Enjoy your hobby, don't worry about rivet counting;)

[Hit Or Miss]

In addition to raised panel lines, the Revell label Monogram kit is coated with sand-paper textured riveting which is highly inconsistent in detail relief and evenness of spacing. These are DENSELY placed, two and three rows thick, especially on the spine and belly.

While they realistically represent the semi-flush fasteners which give the 'Warthog' it's namesake ugliness; _in 1/48th scale_, they look look more like mold flaws than intentional detail.

What's more, they will largely be lost because the Monogram A-10 fuselage has an undulating seam where the plastic curls under at the centerline, leaving a very uneven appearance right down both spine and belly. Careful bending with hemostat clamps, along with sprue column spreaders inside, can help here but there will still be areas that simply have to be sanded and filled and the process of doing this utterly destroys both the raised rivets and the panel lines they surround.

What is left will vanish under paint and leave simply a rough looking surface, made worse by the aging of the molds which has caused the detail to be faint and uneven in spots, fading in and out.

Why -anyone-, -ever-, praised the Monogram kit for this I do not understand as the entire fuselage in particular basically needs a rescribe and rub down after a serious centerline seam filling session and doing this correctly requires a second kit because you are going to end up cutting off all the faceted blade antennas (molded on one fuselage half, crossing the seam, must be Tamiya Greened and then CA'd to close the gaps and stand the stress of sanding) and most of the side-fuselage mounted vents. Dremel or X-Acto drill out a chunk of the donor fuselage and then open the area up around specific vents using sprue cutters before taping them down and using a #17 chisel blade and sanding sticks to separate each greeble).

_None_ of the Low Altitude Safety And Targeting Enhancement (LASTE) radar altimeters are included for the tails. Nor is the Precision Engagement option with the spine mounted GPS antenna and satcomms T-blade. The cockpit is analogue. This makes the jet effectively a mid-80s (Euro-1 only) airframe as I believe it does have the INS pitot feed but nothing else. You cannot accurately build the kit with the post-2000 markings as shown on the boxart.

Starting with the integral seat, the cockpit tub is very poor with exaggerated relief on the console inserts and wide separations between them, similar to the earliest of resin cockpits (cut and sectioned lengths of evergreen strip). The same is true for the main panel. The actual knobs and dials etc. are, however, very low relief. This results in a chintzy looking, '1/32nd consoles with 1/72nd knobs' presentation once painted.

The True Details Cockpit, at around 10 dollars, is nice, if basically just the kit parts recast with better detail relief. It includes seat and turtledeck features and is also the least expensive at 5-6 dollars while the Eduard PE Zoom is the best option for an A-10A+/C with the MFD cockpit at about 6-8 bucks. The Legends cockpit I have not seen but costs 21-24 dollars and the Aires cockpit can be made to fit but is not drop-in and often runs 27-30 dollars.

The AAS-35 Pave Penny, despite having a 'paint black here' mark in the ROG instructions, is actually molded with a cover in place. Something to keep in mind if you elect to go with that release's option to build gear up. Pave Penny is a Laser Spot Tracker that picks up ground sparkle to cue weapons like the Maverick, Gun Cross and occasionally GBU-12.

While the LITENING G3+ and Sniper XR targeting pod both have this option, I have yet to see the Penny removed from the jet. Yet it will be very hard to mimic the real look of the laser seeker which has a cluster of gimbled detectors under a typically semi-smoked and/or sand blasted (frosted) glass hemispheric dome. You can at least mimic the dome however with clear sprue and a lighter after sanding down the head diameter and removing the front 2mm or so (the protective cover is longer than the dome).

The fit of the undernose insert which has the gun gas venting intake and NLG well cutout is pretty bad and since this is the mounting point for the L-shaped NLG well on which the cockpit tub rests, and below which the barrel group of the cannon extends; everything in the nose is potentially jeopardized by poor assembly technique here. Fit, fit, sand, fit and check again before glueing, I recommend interior cross braces, it's unlikely anyone but a judge with a dental mirror will see them.

The NLG strut must also be fitted before the lower panel insert is added and you need to remember to add serious nose weight to keep the model off it's tail before you close it up. Working this area is...unpleasant as there are several things which have to be painted in layers of assembly that don't respond well to assembly jiggering and in particular it's easy to torque up the cockpit tub fit.

The GAU muzzle fairing itself is also poor with the gas vent holes looking out of scale (think: golf ball dimples). A replacement muzzle is almost essential as the kit version is molded into each half of the fuselage with an unsaveable seam running right down the middle if you don't cut off the muzzle group from each fuselage side to get proper access to the underlying area.

Fortunately, there is an affordable AM option here in the form of Master Models GAU-8 muzzle group with a preformed, predrilled, vented barrel cover and seven barrels plus forward and aft barrel collars. If you don't like PE, that second kit I mentioned can gift a donor muzzle from well aft on the nose (you have to rescue the cannon barrel cluster clamp too as it comes out of the insert panel).

The AAR panel outline on the nose doesn't align properly and is not the right shape or location so careful sanding and rescribing must be done by hand in an area with very delicate curves and ALR-69 RWR pimples.

The engine pods do not fit well on the raised fairing pylons (half the engine pylon risers are molded integrally with the fuselage), with very poor location and support. This causes the entire engine group to want to sag into the back of the fuselage. Sprue or Sheet reinforcement across the spine to provide the insert something to rest on is recommended but will increase the already serious tail-heavy CG issue. The rectangular upper fuselage fairing between the engines is solid when in fact it needs a vent hole on either end.

The engine pods themselves have a very clumsy assembly sequence with the rear exhaust pipes and a core turbine afterstage being glued together (large seamline but not too visible once inside) and then mounted to small divots inside the otherwise open cowls. Both need to be prepainted, before the pods are closed.

The cruciform supports extending out from these exhausts are themselves too short and barely graze the slots in the pod sidewalls, resulting in non-positive location and very sloppy az-el orientation.

Getting them to sit at the correctly centered and upwards angle is difficult and as masking material must be stuffed around them to seal both the pod and the exhausts during painting, dislodging the glued in assemblies becomes a real issue since, once the engine pods are closed, if the exhausts come loose, there is no way to reach in and reaffix things short of cutting open the whole pod. Again, rig sheet or sprue extensions from the sidewalls of the pod for the arms to back up against but be careful that you don't mess up centering alignment.

The front fans also are attached via insert before closing the pods with iffy alignment as they rest on ledges inside the front cowls. They have a very obvioius seam and there is another which wraps around the lip of the engine pod itself.

Since the inside of the intake cowl is, depending on era, partly white, the complexity of mating the pods around the fan and exhaust inserts, puttying the external and internal seams and /then/ painting the steel fans and white side walls is almost impossible to get right.

Again, a second kit helps because this allows you to just cut the fronts and backs off assembled spare engine pods, drill out and cut off two sets of fan faces from their plenums, paint and attach the fan plenum and fans separately to the cleaned up outer pod lips, and then attach these directly to the overall engine pod front of the reverse sectioned primary kit components, after camouflage painting. Sierra Hotel has these as precast resin pieces for about 18 bucks.

I should add that the detail on the engine pods is wonky looking to me. The raised hinges on the bottom in particular are crude rather than scale bluff, even for a pod built from heavy armor panels. Sanding these down is tricky and typically (for me) results in having to rescribe around the smoothed outlines before I am satisfied. Again, this will cost you adjacent surface rivet detail.

When attached to the aft fuselage, the engine pylon riser seam and the fuselage panel lines underneath the engines are almost impossible to get at so whatever detailing (APU exhaust), seam clean up or rescribing you are going to do, get it done before you affix the engines. Fit, Fit, Fit Check And Glue, this has to be perfect and level _the first time_.

Buildup of the TF34 pods, in their entirety, can only be termed as poorly engineered from the get go.

My recollection is that the horizontal stabilizers were tight to the point of ridiculous and the verticals loose and floppy but that may have just been me. The horizontals are handed so get them right.

There as a huge gap in the wingroots, top and bottom, which is difficult to deal with due the eccentric curve of the root fairings and the curved step of the fuselage belly passing between each wing.

The wings have large sprue gates on the wing fronts which are hard to trim down (Sprue, thy doom is Dremel Saw!) without chunking out the LE, a fact made worse by the need to protect an adjacent spanwise vortice strip which warns the pilot when he is approaching stall breakaway on airflow.

Together with the sponsons, this makes it difficult to get a neat wing LE.

The rear of the wings themselves also have a large seam, right through the complex flap camber. Something about this curved surface causes a bad fit at the rear corner wingroots. The thickness of the wings and their fit into the root fairings make integration of the wing:fuselage difficult and you really need a jig to make sure both wings are level.

The upper root fairing, where the wing is blended to the fuselage, has a toylike step that is hard to smooth down to a degree where it looks 1/48th and the wingroot join itself simply doesn't have the positive lock it should. Since the wings fit across the bottom fuselage via a slot and tab system, any flex here will pop that seam so reinforcing the interior of the fuselage is important but requires care not to interfere with the tabs.

The landing gear sponsons are hard to fit, must be sanded flush on an obvious external seam and have difficult to reach detail in the wells (Model Master 16473 ADC Grey is a pain to spray and worse to brush, go with 36440 Light Gull or 36307 Light Sea Grey). Balanced with lead shot in the nose against tail sitting, the model is quite heavy and while the Monogram MLG and NLG are not too awful for detail, with their molded in brake lines they look clumsy and really need to be replaced with SAC white metal gear for the longevity of a gear down jet.

Royale Resin or TD for tires. The ones in the kit have rather bad tread detail and seams and the writing on the sidewalls in later kits is blurring out.

The ALE-40 dispenser buckets are crudely formed, empty, and toylike. Ideally they should be individual boxes in a larger tray with 18 square RR170 or 12 MJU-8/10 flares (numbers are memory so may be wrong).

The weapon pylons rest on 'pedestals' that make it hard to clean up seams when mounted (the edge to edge match is not good) and almost impossible to remove as a drag reduction measure for configured, peacetime, training.

Some of the pylons also have serious sink marks which jeopardizes the raised riveting and the sway braces make fitting ordnance a little dicey. Fit-Fit-Fit-And-Level, keeping in mind that the pylons are oriented perpendicular to the ground, not the bottom surface of the airfoil.

The fixed open decelerons are actually only a minor nuissance compared to this but overall, the wings are almost models in their own right with the amount of fitting and fettling necessary to bring them all together. I recommend assembling them separately before attachment so you can work both sides without the fuselage and tails banging.

The ordnance is entirely inappropriate.

First, the USAF began disposing of Napalm, both agent and the BLU-27 cans, almost immediately after Vietnam. Only the Marines hung onto it (in the BLU-10 cans which the USAF uses as a baggage pod).

The SUU-30A/A based cluster ordnance which is included is only appropriate for -early- 60s Vietnam aircraft as it was quickly phased out and replaced in service by the SUU-30B/B. The early CBU is a pointed watermelon shape, the later version a milk bottle with a rounded-blunt nose (see: Little Phantom Shop for what a good set of resin CBU-52/58 look like).

Additionally, CBU-52/58 are APAM weapons, Mk.20 aka CBU-59 is the anti-armor weapon of choice for low level but has serious problems with fusing and ground coverage using high angle dive bombing (as with Desert Storm) which means most pilots prefered the CBU-87 CEM when they could get it because it was a swing munition that could be used against multiple target types and had tail spinfins and active fuse that kept the bomblets from donuting around the target. CBU-87 is quite heavy, almost 1,000lbs, and mind numbingly expensive, thus carried in much smaller numbers, only when a known heavy armor threat is expected.

Now of course, both the early cluster weapons are gone from the inventory and the SUU-60 based TMD is reserved for urgent-need missions in grudging compliance with the mine treaty.

Effectively all ten of the bombs included in the Monogram A-10 kit should sent to the spares box because the A-10 would not have used them at any period in it's history.

The AGM-65 are simplistic and the LAU-88 are passable. The A-10 had significant problems with this tri-rail launcher, suffering both electrical issues with the Quick Draw boresight handoff feature and landing gear fairing (burn) problems as well as being subject to the large drag penalty of the missile triplets, far more than other fast jet types.

When it was carried at all (Desert Storm: 'Cajun' FOL, so that A-10 night hog pilots would have more than two thermal imaging seeker telescopes to hunt hot targets with), you would typically only fit a slant two configuration of Mavericks on each LAU-88. For daylight work, since the late-80s, the A-10 has basically only used the single rail LAU-117 to help the jet retain energy state while maneuvering. Now that targeting pods are routinely available and all jets are NVIS equipped, the using Maverick as a thermal spyglass is no longer done.

The LAU-117 is much thicker than the LAU-88 rail and has 'horns' protruding from the upper sides of the rails. You cannot simply cut off a LAU-88 lower and get away with it. Fortunately Eduard's Brassin and Northstar's Mavericks both include decent LAU-117s and Hobbyboss and Italeri at least passing fair versions.

At this scale, you should be able to see the Cassegrain telescopes inside the B/K Maverick while the D/G have a milky orangish amber colored, rare-earth, materials seeker dome which can only be partially replicated by painting the back with a tan or whitish-light grey and a clear yellow or turn signal amber front. To be fair, the other A-10 kits are no better and it is a noticeable failing in all quarter scale Mavericks but the Hobbyboss and Italeri kits do include LAU-117.

The ALQ-119 is okay, though the Hasegawa Weapons Set ( version is better. The 119 was rapidly replaced in USAFE after the A-10 arrived at Bentwaters by the ALQ-131 Blk.2 for both NATO compatibility and ease of reprogramming in the face of rapidly changing threat band/waveforms. This was after all the Major Leagues.

The ALQ-184 was just coming online when ODS happened (most of the CONUS A-10 units still used the 119) but is now standardized in both long (early) and short (present) variants across the Hog force. You would not see a modern grey-hawg with ALQ-119.

Perhaps most noticeably, there is no Dual Rail Adaptor or AIM-9L/M to put on the opposite outboard station from the jammer pod. This, more than anything, dates the kit to the early-mid 80s period, at best.

A NATO high intensity war would have been fought with just Mavericks, Jammer Pod and (1985 onwards) DRA. Don't bomb up your jet for a Euro-1 bird before 1991 as the A-10 simply doesn't have the thrust to maneuver at low level with large external loads and would have used the standoff of the gun and Maverick combination, plus terrain, to survive.

It looks better, clean, too.

The 600 gallon tank was actually taken from the F-111 program and is the most scale-accurate of any of the A-10 tanks, having the right diameter and curvature. It is fine for long transit deployments (though more often loaded in pairs, the centerline pylon being rarely even fitted...) across the Atlantic or Pacific.

However; up until 2013, it was not a combat tank-

http://aviationintel.com/after-35-years-the-a-10-is-getting-cleared-to-fly-into-combat-with-underwing-fuel-tank/#comment-1294054

Which means that, before that time, you should not fit it if you are depicting a weaponed up bird.

SUMMARY:
All in all, the Monogram A-10 kit invokes more nostalgia than it's worth at 23-28 dollars, plus shipping, online. If you can get one of the older Monogram kits off of EBay for about 14-18, you're doing better (the plastic will be green though).

Despite it's shape problems, the Italeri is a better build but vastly overpriced at barely ten dollars less than the 60 dollar Hobbyboss. The HB in turn is basically a scale down of the Trumpeter, with all the attendant shape issues (nose, canopy, pool table riveting) of it's bigger brother, 'twice as overstated' in 1/48th.

Yet overall, the Italeri and HB are at least buildable without fire, smoke and the shrill screams of sacrificed virgins coming out of the modeling room.

To bring the Monogram up to snuff as a modern USAF jet you need some combination of the following:

1. Master Model GAU-8 Fairing @ 8 dollars + 5 dollars shipping, PE intensive.
2. Hasegawa Weapons Sets B/C/D/E @ 20 dollars each.* Or.
3. Brassin/Northstar AGM-65D + LAU-117. @ 15 dollars.
4. LASTE, PE and Antenna/Vent/GAU greeblies. Second Kit, @ 23 dollars or 30 dollars for the Wolf Pack OIF set (_very nice_ and specifically for the Monogram btw.).
5. Sierra Hotel, the TF34 Fan and Decelerons @ 18 dollars.
6. Sierra Hotel, DRA @ 7 dollars (Sold Out).
7. Sierra Hotel, LASTE Fairings @ 12 dollars (Sold Out).
8. True Details (Monogram Intended) Cockpit @ 6-8 dollars shipping. Or
9. Eduard A-10A or C Zoom SA cockpit placards @ 8-10 dollars. Or.
10. Legend Productions Cockpit @ 24 dollars + 10 dollars shipping. Or.
11. Aires Cockpit @ 35 dollars (HBoss intended). Or.
12. Black Box Cockpit @ 25 dollars (Italeri intended).
13. Resin Tires (TD or Royale Resin) @ 8-12 dollars.
14. SAC White Metal Landing Gear @ 18-22 dollars.
15. LAU-68. TD 'LAU-3' or CMK 'M260' pods @ 4-10 dollars each.
16. The likeliest source for decent, 1/48th, CBU-87 would be the Hasegawa JASDF weapons set.

None of the above figures include shipping.

If you want a one stop shop and aren't afraid of a little sticker shock, key 'things under wings' items like modern Mk.82 Radar X2 and GBU-38 X2, LITENING Targeting Pod X1, LAU-68 FFAR pod X1 GBU-12 X2, along with SUU-25 flare pod and various LASTE antenna plus proper EXCM kneecap fairings are available in one set from OLIMP out of Russia, as part of their 'Afghani Warthogs Update'. They even threw in some decals for a Davis Monthan airframe and weapon stenciling. Alas, it isn't cheap, at around 35 dollars, it is more than the Revell baseline kit.

ARGUMENT:
For roughly 150 dollars worth of 'better shape!' privilege, you still have to unpluck the duck as a function of extensive build improvements, which means the add-on fixed Monogram not only costs 3-5 times as much as the HBoss or Italeri baseline models but is ten times the PITA to put together.

Cost will somewhat average out because the newer, more expensive, kits need serious weapon and cockpit upgrades themselves but it basically comes down to this:

They are easy builds.

With modern tool starting points (the Hobby Boss in particular has a nice cockpit which doesn't necessarily require a resin replacement) they are simple to assemble, if not as shape-accurate.

IMO, good fit (single piece upper fuselage) and recessed lines really count on aircraft which has a plethora of complex shapes and particularly weapons and antenna greeblies sticking out of it. It's simply very hard to sand and putty around these things without losing panel detail. I can actually do without the rivets which rarely look scale accurate in 1/48th at the densities shown on the 1:1.

Monogram instead chose to take the opposite direction with a plethora of ultra fine, raised, detail that will not survive assembly on a kit which has 1980s tooling fit issues and really needs a bunch of updates to properly depict the modern A-10 depicted on the boxart.

CONCLUSION:

In short: _The Revell Kit Is Not Average Modeler, Average Build, Friendly_. It's the kit you buy to save some money for all the aftermarket you're going to add anyway for a competition or museum level build. IMO, we still need a good, inexpensive, _accurate_ followon to this kit. The $70.00 Hobbyboss isn't that model.

*
B = ALQ-131, SUU-25 and TER
C = AGM-65 Maverick, LAU-88, AIM-9L/M
D = GBU-12 and TER
E= ALQ-184, Litening or Sniper pods and GBU-38
JASDF = CBU-87 CEM

Some of the above Hasegawa Weapon Set ordnance is occasionally sold, separately, for 4-5 bucks per weapon, plus shipping, on EBay.

Edited February 5, 2016 by Hit Or Miss

[tempestfan]

How does Revell's own tool shape up ? Probably a bit clumsy as most of their late 70s stuff?