1:48 GBU-12 (body Mk.82) (1x pair - resin) (Decals included)

The most widespread laser bomb of the Western air forces

The GBU-12 belongs to the Paveway II family and comes about by fitting a guidance head with a laser sensor at the front and a set of folding surfaces at the rear onto a bomb body of the five hundred pound weight class. The weapon itself searches for nothing; it aims at a reflected beam shone onto the target either by a ground party or by a targeting pod hung under the aircraft. That is exactly why such a pod almost always appears beside the bombs in photographs of combat flights.

What the casting consists of

In the package you will find one pair, that is two pieces, with which both sides of the machine are fitted. The folding surfaces at the tail are substantially finer in cast form than what an injection mold can manage, and the head has the window of the sensor distinctly drawn out.

How the finished aircraft is transformed

A Rafale or Mirage kit tends to be equipped rather with substitute stores or only with empty racks. With this pair the model gains a particular task: two bombs under the wings and, along with that, the logical need to add a targeting pod, so that the resulting arrangement matches what the machines really took off with on patrol flights over the Sahel.

Building recommendation

Cut the casting remnants off parallel with the body so that the circular cross-section is preserved. After washing and drying apply a base, and only then the covering shade. The decals enclosed complete the narrow colored bands by the nose of the bomb; their width and position differ between live and training munitions, so by them a viewer recognizes what the aircraft really carried.