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new Hasegawa 1/72 weapons set


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Oh, Aircraft Weapons VIII is sooo yesterday's news. Hobby Link Japan already has an announcement for Part IX! :lol: LINK

:cheers: ;)

No, seriously. While HLJ's announcement doesn't give any details as to what will be included, I'd reckon that Part IX has the ground-pounding and targeting stuff that Part VIII, well, didn't, because it contains the AAMs, launchers and ECM pods. All this, of course, based on the contents of their 1/48 Aircraft Weapons E.

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Nice!

The missiles and jamming pod are easy to ID (AIM-9X, AIM-120C, ALQ-184), as is the LAU-128. The other launchers are trickier - one pretty much has to be the LAU-115, could the other be a LAU-106? And what is that thing with the prongs on the sides?

Also, the listed items don't take up all that much sprue space, so there should be plenty of each in the box...

Thanks for the heads-up!

SP

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Hobby Search has scans of the instructions. CLICKY!

Set VIII will give you:

6x AIM-9X Sidewinder

12x AIM-120C AMRAAM

3x AN/ALQ-188 EAT pod

3x AN/ALQ-184 ECM pod

12x LAU-127 launcher rails

3x LAU-115C/A AIM-7 launchers

3x LAU-115B/A twin-AMRAAM launchers (in conjunction with the LAU-127 rails)

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The "three sprues to a package" mentality strikes again - unless you're doing assymmetric loads (which I haven't seen for air-to-air) you'll need two sets - which is a lot of missiles. More so considering how many kits from other manufacturers come with enough missiles to go around on their own...

(Revell's recent jet kits could be referred to as weapons sets with added aircraft - aside from the Tornado IDS, which doesn't have any weapons except Sidewinders for some silly reason, and the Tornado ECR which has just enough weapons to go around, all of them will leave a pile of weapons for the spares box even if you load for bear...)

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you'll need two sets

Only if you want to use the dual Super Hornet rails - all other items that are usually carried in pairs (as in, anything but the ECM pods) are included in even numbers.

Of course I would have liked Hasegawa to bless us with four sprues, but the recent LGB / guided weapons sets were worse in this respect...

Cheers,

Andre

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Not just the dual rails- you're forgetting the Sparrow launcher for the outboard station. Granted, I don't think I've ever seen that one on an aircraft, and the outboard stations are very often assymmetrically loaded.

Looking at the 1/48-scale set, it looks like we might be getting GBU-31(V), GBU-38, left hand HTS, and Lightning in the next set, which doesn't sound like a lot. I can't remember any other set which only had four different pieces of kit in it - Set VIII at least has a ton of launch rails and adapters to fill the sprues. There's still a bunch of stuff that hasn't been kitted at all yet, though, so here's a list of possibilities:

AVEL racks (twin racks for smart weapons, used on Hornet and Viper - Super Hornet kit already has them though)

Sniper pod (don't know which is more common today, this or the Lightning pod. Used on lots of aircraft.)

GBU-32 1000lb JDAM (only size they haven't made yet...)

GBU-39 SDB (would be beyond awesome. We are sooo not getting one...)

AGM-84H/K SLAM-ER (the SLAM from the other set doesn't exist in service anymore. Also, used on the SLAM Eagle, aside from USN Hornets)

AGM-158 JASSM (not very "Joint" anymore, but they're used on the F-15 and F-16)

Cheers,

SP

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They provide the F/A-18's blunt-nosed LAU-127A/A; the pointy-nosed LAU-127C/A would seem a bit more forward looking, but I guess they want the former to also pass for the F-16's LAU-129. They also provide two flavors of LAU-115: the Desert Storm-era LAU-115A/A, which can be used with both LAU-7 and (later on) LAU-127 launchers and the LAU-115C-D/A, which showed up between Desert Storm and Enduring Freedom and can only be used with the LAU-127. The LAU-115 is also the F/A-18 launcher for the AIM-7 (just leave off the Sidewinder/AMRAAM LAUs).

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Gents:

I'll bet Weapon Set IX contains at least

3 X Sniper

3 X LITENING

3 x GBU-31(V) penetrator

9 x GBU-38

and either the 3 x GBU-32 1000 lb JDAM or something else. It would fit the pattern of their last set of releases. Although three of a kind is odd I appreciate 3 ECM pods per box rather than the 2 in their early releases.

Mark

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Not just the dual rails- you're forgetting the Sparrow launcher for the outboard station. Granted, I don't think I've ever seen that one on an aircraft, and the outboard stations are very often assymmetrically loaded.

Looking at the 1/48-scale set, it looks like we might be getting GBU-31(V), GBU-38, left hand HTS, and Lightning in the next set, which doesn't sound like a lot. I can't remember any other set which only had four different pieces of kit in it - Set VIII at least has a ton of launch rails and adapters to fill the sprues. There's still a bunch of stuff that hasn't been kitted at all yet, though, so here's a list of possibilities:

AVEL racks (twin racks for smart weapons, used on Hornet and Viper - Super Hornet kit already has them though)

Sniper pod (don't know which is more common today, this or the Lightning pod. Used on lots of aircraft.)

GBU-32 1000lb JDAM (only size they haven't made yet...)

GBU-39 SDB (would be beyond awesome. We are sooo not getting one...)

AGM-84H/K SLAM-ER (the SLAM from the other set doesn't exist in service anymore. Also, used on the SLAM Eagle, aside from USN Hornets)

AGM-158 JASSM (not very "Joint" anymore, but they're used on the F-15 and F-16)

Cheers,

SP

I'd love to see Hasegawa include a few GBU-15's/AGM-130's and the appropriate data link pod in an weapons set but I'm not holding my breath.

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The older sets had an astounding variety of stuff though:

Set I: 8 types of bomb, two types of rocket pods, plus TERs and MERs, 72 items total

Set II: 6 types of bomb, two types of designator pod, two types of gunpod, plus TERs and MERs again, 38 items total

Set III: 10 types of air-to-air missile, one type of gunpod, one dispenser pod(?), two kinds of missile launcher, 58 items total

Set IV: 8 types of air-to-surface missile, 4 types of ECM pod, towed target and pod for it, 36 items total

Set V: 3 types of air-to-air missile, two types of air-to-surface missile, one type of bomb, TACTS pod, three types of missile launcher, 48 items total

Set VI: 4 types of bomb, two types of bomb rack, 30 items total

Set VII: 2 types of bomb, two types of sensor pod, one ECM pod, and five types of hardpoint, 33 items total (of which between six and 9 would be discarded, since there aren't enough pods for all the hardpoints)

Notice how the number of different items drops with Set V, the first one with three identical sprues to a box. And for all of the above, you could pull essentially one maximum load for any aircraft of any weapon (one and a half in the later sets) out of a single box. With set VIII, you need two boxes to fully arm a Hornet or Super Hornet...

SP

Edited by SebastianP
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Yep, less variety and less pieces. But i'll be waiting for IX and will be as happy with that as i am with VIII :yahoo: Not sure what Modern Hobbies is doing lately... with with Skunkworks and these new sets, a few more options for loadouts in 1/72!

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That's where I got the info above from. :-)

Don't get me wrong, I'll be getting at least one of each eventually, probably two each of set V up. And, sometimes getting three to a box isn't a bad idea, since you have one you can mess up and still have a useful load afterwards... ;)

Cheers

SP

Edit: Yessssss! :D

Edited by SebastianP
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This was posted in the second post in the thread: http://www.hlj.com/product/HSGX72-14

June release, 900 yen full price, 720 yen pre-order.

Frankly, given the contents of my spares box I'm going to pass on set VIII for now. The only unique bits are the LAU-115 launchers, the rest I have tons of from Revell's recent jets. And the only load I'd use the -115s for, I'd need two sets to do. (Full tilt air-to-air load needs four units, only three in a box).

The only kit I've gotten in the last couple of years that hasn't had all the missiles needed plus spares on top was the Academy F/A-18C, and that's only because it had Sparrows (nice ones, though) instead of AMRAAMs. The only US jets that Hasegawa still makes the best kit for are the F-14 and F-15, and those are better served by earlier sets.

IX, on the other hand, contains a bunch of useful stuff that can't be gotten in plastic elsewhere, plus two pieces that are fairly rare (GBU-31(V), LANTIRN Navflir)...

Cheers,

SP

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'cause Revell already has one? They insist on calling it "Eurofighter Typhoon" for some reason though....

SP

Yet, only 2 are included and 4 are required to build a RAF QRA aircraft :P

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