Airfix – 3303 – Sam 2 Guideline Missile

Description:

Sam 2 Guideline Missile

This is an interesting Airfix orginal kit tooled and released for first time in 1972, and a short lived one, as last time released was so early as 1975, and then never seen again.

The subject was of particular interest in the 70s, the Soviet S-75 Dvina (NATO reporting name SA-2 Guideline) entered service in the late 50s and remains in use through updates and thanks to its mass production and the many operators around the world, with around 4600 launchers produced.

Soviet topics was not very common in the modeling world in the 70s, mainly due the lack of information. Airfix issued this kit as in Egyptian service, with markings for the 1968 Arab-Israeli War (Six-Day War).

There are rumors about mold destruction, which could explain the lack of reissues since the mid 70s short after the initial release, as well as probably the subject chosen by Airfix was not seen as a politically correct thing at the time, but in any case seems the kit is lost forever and a valuable collectors piece, with less value as real static display model, due it’s simplification and quality, things in the 70s was not the same. The kit is 1/76 scale, which also reduces it use nowadays, with 1/72 scale being much more popular than the older 1/76.

Airfix included the Zil-157 truck transport, and the launcher can be posed either in transport or launch mode, which was a plus.