No products in the cart.
all
New Su-25 Frogfoot A
Being one of the main war machines of the ongoing Russian invasion in Ukraine, Su-25 Frogfoot gained a lot of popularity lately. Despite being a rather old design, its fame in Soviet-Afghan War was spread only locally, mostly among Soviets. It was its very first involvement. Decades later, in Russian participation in Syrian War, Su-25 was also in the news, but again – nobody paid much attention to it. Especially not among those sexy Flankers. In between those two theaters, acting in small-scale conflicts and with limited foreign /non-real combat/ usage among ex-Warsaw pact Air Forces, Su-25 became a somewhat obscured subjects of a sort. There are books on the subject, but not really extensive ones. There are documentaries too, but not really an in depth one. There are scale models also, but not really a satisfying one.
Some would argue that Trumpeter 1/32 Su-25K and UBK kits are just fine. But they aren’t really. There are many flaws and misses, however being the only two in that large scale, they are still being purchased by modelers. With a decent amount of work, acceptable results can be achieved, but nothing close enough to the modern modeling reality. No amount of resin can fix some of the issues with those two. Unfortunately.
In quarter scale /being credited as the “King of All Scales” by many/, the situation is somewhat similar. Old KP, Smer and etc., are far from what we are used to in the early 20s of the 21st century. Zvezda tried to give us better tooling in 2022, but they too missed the golden opportunity, delivering a kit with a arguable engineering and a mixed bag of features. Besides, Zvezda were never an A player in the modeling game. So we got what we expected from them. No more, no less. And on top of that, people are avoiding buying products from Russia for moral reasons lately. And that draw some destiny lines for that kit from the get go. Bad timing, we guess.
Kitty Hawk promised a pair of Frogfoots, but they are gone, alongside with the company itself. So we are left with nothing currently. Not literally, but if you try to find a really good kit of the Su-25, you will hit a brick wall. Maybe in 72nd the situation is a bit different, but we are focused on larger options in this article.
With their latest catalogue announcements, Trumpeter have popped a quarter scale Su-25 upcoming in 2023. But let’s not get excited so quickly. Trumpeter and HobbyBoss are pretty much the same entity. And that same entity is known for releasing quite similar designs upscaling or downscaling them. A great example is their Intruder, which is a brilliant kit in both – 32nd and 48th. But that does not go for all of them. Another end of the spectrum is their Flogger line, which is, by far – one of the worst representations that we have seen in scale on that subject.
But back to the Frogfoot. If Trumpeter are about to give us a new, redesigned tooling of the Su-25 in 48th scale, this is something to look for. And we will be very excited about it! But if we are about to get a downscaled representation of their 32nd scale kit, we will remain stuck in the situation that we are currently now. Because it is extremely unlikely for them to make that /32nd scale/ thing work, scaling it down and re-arrange the assembly procedures. It is simply a kit below the current standard for companies, even like Trumpeter.
So what we’re about to get will dictate the near future of the Su-25 in scale. If Trumpeter surprise us with completely new tooling /which we doubt will be the case/, there will be a decent, honestly-priced kit from a huge and widespread manufacturer out there. But if they don’t, with the recent Zvezda kit being around and then Trumpeter, this might put us in another spiral of years waiting for a new, decent representation, made according to contemporary standards. And that is bad because Su-25 deserves to be out there in proper form and shape. With its Digital Camouflages and rich war experience, it is a hard miss. It is ugly, slow, unrefined piece of metal, but we gotta give it to it. It is a tough bird that can suffer a lot of damage and still survive. That give us – modelers – a ton of options to weather, damage, wear and tear and have overall fun modeling. Let us hope, that Trumpeter will deliver it as they should.
