Eduard 1/48th Il-2"M" (Il-2 AM-38F, 1942 Model)

By Matt Bittner

Background

You would think that being the most produced combat aircraft of all time (over 36,000 built), there would be more survivors of the Il-2. Unfortunately this isn't the case and finding a surviving Il-2 is not easy. You do have museum examples, but I think there are only four or five. Two that come to mind right away are the one that hasn't been unveiled yet at the NASM in Washington, D.C., USA, and the other in the Kbely musuem in Prague.

Now to get the rant out of the way. When it comes to official Soviet documents, the only "subtype" the Il-2 had was the torpedo version, or Il-2T. All others are nomenclatures given by the West. So, officially, the type of Il-2 the kit is trying to represent is the Il-2 AM-36F, 1942 Model. Or, in others words, a two-seater with straight wings. However, those wings were wood, and not metal as is depicted in the kit. In fact, as the research shows currently - and Il-2 research is in a state of flux with new information being learned constantly - the type of Il-2 the kit tries to represent never existed. There was no Il-2 with a wood fuselage and metal, straight wings. So, time to break out the putty if you're going to build this into an accurate Il-2.

The Kit

This release by Eduard is actually the Accurate Miniatures (AM) kit. What they did is take the two-seater Il-2"M3" (again, a misnomer, as the two-seater with wood fuselage and metal wing was known as the Il-2 AM-38F, 1943 model as well as 'so Strielkoy' (arrow wing) and 'twin-spar') and combine it with the single-seater AM wings. I'll give Eduard a 'A' for effort, but a 'C' overall. You have a lot of work ahead of you, like I mention above, to fill in the panel lines on these wings. The parts are cast in the usual AM-way and you get everything that was included with the AM kit, including the clear instrument panel. That instrument panel is now moot with the addition of Eduard's excellent photoetch.

Another odd thing with this release. While Eduard has closely matched Industrial Metal Primer (IMP) on the excellent, colored photoetch, they leave the AM call for "grey-green" for the interior of the kit. Completely and utterly wrong, regardless of what you hear from some "camps". Il-2 interiors were left in IMP, except for some colored knobs, bumps and such.

Decals are to the usual high standards of Aviprint and are very nicely done. There are four schemes catered for on the sheet:

Unknown Unit, Late 1943 finished in AMT-4 and AMT-6 over AMT-7
Pilot V.B Yemelyanienkho, 7 GvShAP, Summer 1943 in AMT-4 and AMT-6 over AMT-7
Pilot V.P. Aleksukhin / Gunner A.P Gatayunov, August 1943, finished in Dark Green/Light Brown/Dark Grey over AMT-7
8 GvShAP, Black Sea Fleet, 1943 in an unusual scheme (still trying to track this one down)
An all-over white washed aircraft (found tucked away on the front of the instruction sheet)

Unfortunately, as I previously mentioned twice, you'll have to fill in the wing panel lines to make these schemes accurate. All schemes are for wood-wing aircraft.

I won't go into details of how this aircraft assembles since it's been out for quite some time. Since I'm not a 1/48th builder I will leave that to whomever builds this for Internet Modeler. In the meantime, I will point you to an excellent build article on the VVS site.

Conclusion

A lot of 1/48th VVS modelers are going to be happy someone has finally re-released the two-seat Accurate Miniatures Il-2. It's been in short supply recently and I've seen a lot of 'net traffic looking for them. While people adamant about Il-2 accuracy have a little more work cut out for them on this release, namely filling in spurious wing panel lines, I can still see it being a very welcome release. Since the first AM release with the 'twin spar' Il-2 - albeit that one being spurious as well - releasing a two-seat straight wing (even with all the extra work) I can see being a blessing, especially if you're enamoured with the Il-2. Coupled with the superbly printed Aviprint decals and Eduard's wonderful photoetch, even with the extra work this is a welcome re-release.

My thanks to Eduard for the review kit.