Jan Etal provides us with a partial build review of the Zvezda SS-25 "TOPOL" Russian Mobile Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Launcher.

Link to Item

If you have comments or questions please post them here.

Thanks!

Darren,

Thank you very much for getting this review published. There's been quite an interest in this kit lately and I hope that the review will answer some of the questions being asked.

Cheers,
Jan

I'm working on it now and he wasn't joking about the small parts. I had to cross out the steps I wasn't using so I wouldn't get mixed up(I found that the hard way)

Amazing kit. How long is this thing??

@Ladylion - Rebecca,

I'm happy that you checked out the review and can confirm some of the points that were made about the kit. I haven't started the chassis yet but I may borrow your method of keeping track of parts as they are used.

@spongya - Andras,

The missile tube measures out to almost 12 inches or 31 cm top to bottom. The tube width at its minimum is 27mm (1 1/16 inches). The truck itself will be slightly shorter than the tube.

For further information, you might check out the Zvezda RT-2PM TOPOL (kit 5003) Build BLOG

Cheers,
Jan

Not my thing but this is a great review, Jan! Those photos of the missile next to the German tank - wow!

Hi to all, perhaps I "over read" something. (not seen)

For this kit there are correction-sets available.
The Zvezda-kit is not correct, when the missile-tube is shown in launch-position.
The half-round front-part will be removed before erecting the tube.

Also I contacted Zvezda about this incorrect detail, but got a very intersting answer. (I don´t want to publish this here)


LVM-Studios made a great job for these 2 update sets!

From their page:
"The conversion kit enables you to show the missle launcher in launch position."

http://lvm-studios.com/uncategorized/detail-conversion-kit-zvezda-topol-ss-25-sickle-172/

greetings...

Soeren

My, my, it’s obvious that some people have been “surfing” over the holidays!

@ JPTRR - Frederick,

Thanks for posting and glad that you found the pose with the Stug III interesting. :-) I tried taking some photos with a similar scale vehicle that most would recognize to hopefully show the size of this thing. I tried a Dragon Jeep in a picture but it just didn’t turn out (it also almost fit into the launch tube).

@ Gorizont - Soren,

I remember discussing these “upgrades” with you a while back in the BLOG thread. Back then I found pictures of Topols on exercises with the erector up and the nose cone still in place. The caption said that they didn’t want to expose the missile or tube interior to the elements.

Cheers,
Jan

Hmm, how will they fire their missiles, when the cap is still on top of the misslle-container / -tube?

I found some videos on youtube, where the "Start" and others were launched.

PS: What a sound of "happy new year-wishes". ;-)

Happy new year to you and all other model-builders!

I lost my hobby due to personal reasons. (burn out syndrome... and some more)

Soeren