Zvezda 1:100 BM-13 Katyusha

A closer look at the 1:100 Soviet BM-13 Katyusha game expansion produced by the Russian modelmaker Zvezda for their "Art Of Tactic" wargame range. This kit was a nice alternative to the resin/metal BM-13 kits made by Battlefront Miniatures, but BFM recently released a new Katyusha plastic modelkit, you can find a video here.

I bought one of these kits some months ago and used it as a base for my ZIS-6 truck with a 37mm aa gun built, but since I also wanted a Katyusha rocket launcher, I got this kit a second time, but without any more words spents, let us take a look at the modelkit of this game expansion:

First of all, you do not get what you see on the boxart. There is no armoured windshield, the rails of the launcher do not have any holes, and there are only rockets for the upper part of the launcher rails. This sucks, but as we saw in the Bradley review, this happens sometimes with Zvezda kits.

The kit comes in two green sprues, and as usual, this modelkit is made fom the same green plastic as all other Soviet "Art Of Tactic" 1:100 tank kits. The casting quality is good, what I expected, since most Zvezda wargaming modelkits are made very well.

It could be built without the use of any glue, all parts fit and sit well without it, but using regular modelglue works fine on this kit.

I did not find any issues on the sprues, except for some mouldlines which have to be to removed, but there is minimal flash, no sinkholes, and any ejectormarks (if there are some on the parts) would not be seen, when this kit is built.

The frame parts of the launcher are pretty delicate, that you have to take care not to bend them, but they look nice when built.

Once again we have a 1:100 "Age Of Tactic" modelkit, which I recommend, even when you do not get what you see on the box. The overall grade of detail is well done and for its price it could be a cheap alternative to the resin/metal and plastic wargame model made by BFM. Maybe I will get my hands on one of those plastic kits in the future, then I will take a closer look at it.

If you want to built a "real" 1:100 BM-13 model kit, you will have to wait til one will hit the market, you may use the Zvezda kit as a base, but this would take a lot of work, even when drilling up the windows would not be as complicated as it would be for Zvezdas 1:100 Opel Blitz.

Today I do not have a picture of my built and painted Katyusha truck, I keep this for a future post, when I will show the simple modifications I did to improve its look.

Instead of this you can listen to the beautiful Russian song "Katyusha" from which the BM-13 got its nickname.