Help Identify This Soviet Kit

[modelldoc]

Here is my build one:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/21603181@N08/15731153179/

This kit and some other now offert by ARK Models.

modelldoc

[stevehnz]

How about this one? Not sure which KP this is...

https://www.scalemates.com/kits/251768-kp-models-002-ilyushin-il-2-type-3

Cheers,

Bill

Thats a new one too me Bill, thanks, I suspect from its number its an early KP kit & has certainly slipped under my radar. I'd like to see one, from what we can see, the molding looks quite decent. Afaics, the molding isn't shared by any others out there (put Il-2 into the quick search) at least in its original form.

Steve.

Edited February 16, 2015 by stevehnz

[Giorgio N]

IIRC, the Soviets did not take any of Frog's German (Nazi) types - for political reasons.

Also - Frog should be written as FROG - as it is an acronym for 'Flies Right Off the Ground'.

Not a lot of people know that (said in a Michael Caine accent).

Ken

Yes, the Axis types mostly ended up with Revell. The Ta-152 for example was reissued by Revell only last year.

And you're of course right with the FROG name, that was due to their first products being flying models

The story is more complex than that: Frog were to help create a Soviet plastic model industry, and tooled four Russian types. The Anatra, the Lagg3, the Yak3 and the MiG3. There was talk of an IL2 to follow but I don't believe that got anywhere. To pay for this, and help set the ball rolling in the USSR, large numbers of the earlier Frog kits were run off. When everything fell through, the new tooling stayed in the UK with initially only test runs available, the re-runs appeared in the UK cheap under the Novo label, and the tooling was distributed to various factories around the USSR with very variable histories. The new four were then produced by Red Star in the UK, and later by other companies - Emhar?

Emhar was the one, I don't know however if this was a new company or was just Red Star changing name. I also have to say that while I have no idea if Emhar's later FJ-4 Fury started its life with FROG, the result has the same feel

Edited February 16, 2015 by Giorgio N

[Seahawk]

"Novo" was I believe short for "Novoexport". If you want Frog kits, and don't care about the box, instructions, or decals, they are cheaper than mint Frog boxings.

Or mind the transparencies not being at all transparent.

[garryrussell]

The Donetsk Toy Factory was recently destroyed

Re FROG

I always write it as FROG and it always was FROG. After they relaunched following the Lines brothers collapse they styled themselves Frog and of course they had always had a frog on the early logos.

So either is right....but I prefer the FROG as it shows the roots

Edited February 16, 2015 by garryrussell

[Graham Boak]

I am absolutely sure that KP did not do an IL2 in its original incarnation, but I believe that they did take over the Mikro moulds so the kit shown could be one of those. There were however a large number of Eastern European Il2 kits which appeared after the collapse of Warsaw Pact, so there are other possibilities.

The Emhar Demon was considerably later, and is not suggested as having Frog/FROG roots. It may be that the same toolmaker/makers were involved in its production, hence any similarities. It is a bit unfair to blame Frog for every debatable bit of tooling.

[Dave Fleming]

Emhar was the brand used by Pocketbond for the Red Star releases, and also their own kits

[Flankerman]

Re FROG......

I was wandering around the Hamley's toy department floor at the Debenhams store in Bristol many years ago - just idly browsing - when I was approached by a young (he looked about 12), suited sales assistant who asked if could help me ?

So I asked him if they had any FROG kits??..............

He thought for a moment.... 'Frog?', 'Frog?'.... hhhmmmm.

'No sir' he replied 'but we do have some Airfix Dinosaurs'..........

I chuckled all the way to Beatties....

Ken

[The wooksta V2.0]

The Emhar FJ4 Fury is scaled down from the 48th Matchbox kit and believed by some to be the last tools created by that company.

[tempestfan]

I'm fairly certain KP only had an Il-10 pre-1990. The "limited to 1000" example seems to have the plastic of this one - looks rather ancient Soviet/Russian to me. The sprues for the ZTS Mikro72 kit are here (scroll down).

Dave is correct in that Frog made copies of the Hasegawa F-4K, Lightning and Harrier tools when co-operation ended, but many many more Hase kits were reboxed by Frog, so it's only a tiny fraction they copied.

Indeed the Emhar FJ-4 looks like a sclaed-down clone of the MB 1/48 kit, and I believe the Fury was the first Emhar kit to hit the market, before they acquired (?) the ex-Red Star tooling. Incidentally, the Fury was also reboxed by Revell for some time, so the owner of the cloned mould also distributed its clone. Emhar's Demon and F-94 IIRC came later.

On the topic of Red Star, they sold the kits both individually bagged and as a set of four - somewhere in my mind I recall reading about a "collector's tin" in some ads ca. 1985.

The USSR did quite a few aircraft model kits before the ex-Frogs, e.g. some MiG-15, a ca. 1:55 Il-2, and a number of civilian types. The Frog deal, as I recall reading about it, was an attempt by DCM (Dunbee Combex Marx), owner of the Frog range besides a host of others, to decrease production costs via a barter deal that had them sell their moulds to the USSR, with the payment to be effected by shipments of mouldings. IIRC Novo Toys was another DCM subsidiary. The deal did not come along after Frog (or rather DCM) went bust. As the Frog range had nothing Soviet except the La-5 (or 7 ?), the Soviets wanted a few more, to which end DCM had the four moulds tooled up that were never released as Novo and found their way to Red Star and then onwards to Emhar. I'd have to re-read Lines/Hellström, but DCM may have been in administration by the time the moulds were ready, hence those never finding their way to the USSR. Incidentally, a Soviet outfit called Alfa released a LaGG-3 around 1990 that bore a strong resemblance to the "English" tool - probably derived off a test shot.

Also correct that the Soviets refused the Frog Axis tools. Those went to Revell, with many of them being released immediately afterwards, some only first in the 90s in the black Matchbox boxes (Mc 202, He 219, for the latter Revell had a mould of their own), some being unaccounted for (Me 109F, A6M5, Fw 190A). A sizeable amount of older Frog tools is claimed to have been "lost at sea", like the F-86E, Meteor 8, Canberra PR and so on. I don't usually buy "lost at sea" tales, but can't prove otherwise.

And finally correct that Revell reboxed both the ex-Frog copy of the Lightning in the 90s (along with e.g. Canberra 8, Shack, Vengeance, Gannet) and later on the Hase original (which itself was mildly updated by Hasegawa in the late 80s or so).

I'll stop now lest I bore you to death...