A Review Battlefront’s SU-25 Frogfoot Boxed Set

By Tom Burgess

When the WWIII Team Yankee US nationals point levels went to 120 points this year, I was a bit beside myself on how I was going to expand my Soviet collection. At 100 points it already was huge and filling up my ground unit transport cases.

So I decided to go “vertical” and buff up my air support for my Soviets. I already had two of the older resin SU-25s that Battlefront offered previously and a friend offered me a set of the new Battlefront plastic SU-25s () at a price that I could not pass up. Since I now had both the older new sets, I thought it might do be nice to a bit of a combination review and comparison.

The first major difference between the older and new Battlefront SU-25 boxed sets is the price. The older resin models came in at $47 (US) for a box of two. The new plastic kits are now $36 for a box of  two. A 23% price reduction is not a bad place to start!

Another change I really liked is that this new box came with two long stems for the flight stands. I’m pretty sure my older SU-25s came with just one long and one short stem. Also included are unit cards, decals, nice instructions, and a resin sprue with eight Kh-25 air-to-ground missiles.

Why did the plastic sprues not have the Kh-25 missiles to begin with? That is because the plastic sprues were previously offered by a South Korean model company, Academy. Interestingly, instead of supplying the model with the original clear canopy for the cockpit, the new Battlefront model instead comes with a separate solid mini-sprue for the cockpit. So you will have to paint it just like the older resin Battlefront models.

The kits went together easy enough. I think I build both models from the box in less than an hour. There are some small issues with the build I found. The first was that the upper and lower fuselage parts did not quite match. The join down both sides of the fuselage was noticeable. Another was that the main landing gear doors sink down into the hull easily. I had to put some of the landing gear parts that I was not going in as spacers to keep the doors from sinking in.

I noticed that the dimension differences between the older and new models is noticeable. The new plastic wings are not as wide and the new plastic fuselage was a bit longer. As I was building my newer models I was worried that would not mix well with my older models in the same unit.

A change I did not care for was that the new kits have no magnets. Instead, the new clear plastic flight stand sprues have a clear “socket” that you are supposed to glue on the bottom of the model and will then seat on the flight stand stem. As I have plenty of small magnets, I opted to just use those instead to connect the plane to the flight stand stem.

Here are both models from the new kit assembled. I’ll note here that the new models have more hardpoints to attach ordnance. The new models have five hardpoints while the older ones only had four. The newer kit allows more of a mix of ordnance options. The old kit only gave each model four Kh-25 missiles and four rocket pods. The new kits let you mix up the ordnance a bit more with each model having two drop tanks, four Kh-25 missiles, six rocket pods, and two bombs. I did not max out the ordnance on my new model. Instead, I chose to arm them the same as my older resin models so they might match better.

Above is one of the completed new models. You can see the join line mentioned earlier along the side of the fuselage. I’m sure a more skilled modeler than I could have made it disappear, but 30 minutes per model is about my limit on how much time I wanted to put into a plastic model. I think the join is acceptable in a game table quality model.

An here’s the other model from the kit. Note the new plastic kits have some better detail on the aerials extending from the nose and behind the cockpit.

Here are the new pair together.

Here’s a comparison of the older resin model on the left and a newer plastic model on the right.

And again…..older resin model on the left and a newer plastic model on the right.

Here’s my full flight of four SU-25s with the new models in the front. For gaming purposes, they look fine together. I was really worried about how the old and new models would look together due to the small size variations. But honestly, I think they look just fine and I’m pretty picky about such things.

Here’s the stat card. With the new Challengers and M1A1s having really heavy front armor, I think the Kh-25 missiles will cause the SU-25s to make a more frequent appearance in my future Soviet WWIII Team Yankee lists. In the end, I recommend these new models with the three big pluses being cheaper cost, more ordinance options, and two long stem flight stands. The negatives of the fuselage join lines and no included flight stand magnets I thought were negligible.