HADmodels has a wide range of decal sets for modern armor in Hungary (which are mostly from Soviet/Russian origin), one of these was issued for Trumpeter’s new 1/35th scale BMP-1.

The Set

The set contains markings for Hungarian, Czech, Slovak and Iraqi vehicles but mostly focuses on the Hungarian Defense Forces and the former Hungarian People’s Republic.

The decals arrive in a small ziplock bag as most of such sets do, with an A4-sized instruction sheet in color, folded in half. This contains 9 photos of Hungarian BMP-1s and decal placement, but unfortunately most of them only show just one part/one side of the vehicles and do not give a full picture for the modeller. There is neither further explanation nor line drawings. Upon reviewing the decal sheet itself we will see that most numbers are printed three times, so the puzzle is more or less solved: one (without national insignia) goes to the right side rear door, the other two go to the turret. The numbers with the insignia and the unit markings form one decal thus making placement easier. Of course these can be cut to minimize the risk of the ”silvering” effect.

For the other countries’ vehicles we have three line drawings with very basic markings.

The Slovak one has a national insignia and a precut number per side.

The Czech one has the same but the vehicle’s number should be made up from individually cut digits.

The Iraqi one has a national and a yellow flag on the antennae and an insignia and also flag on the side of the hull. Wikipedia has a photo of such a vehicle, dated June 2006.

None of the three above has any additional information like unit name, year, etc.

The quality of the decals is excellent as usual, with sharp prints and good colors and with a really thin film. The biggest plus of the set is the amount of decals we receive in addition to the pre-cut numbers: there are three different styles, each of them has 6 prints of the digits from 0 to 5 and 3 prints for the rest. Standalone spare insignias for the Hungarian Defense Forces and the former Hungarian People’s Republic are also available.

Color codes are not provided for any of the vehicles.

Conclusions

All in all this is very useful and reasonably priced set, but chiefly for Hungarian modellers. The instructions could be a little clearer though, but with reference pictures at hand, there should be no issues.