Designed as a high altitude interceptor, the Mig-3 was not built for much longer than a year. This is because it became apparent that the war with the Germans was not one of shooting down high flying bombers, but one where ground attack planes were the primary bombing type used. The Mig-3 was quite capable at altitude, but was badly outclassed by the Germans in low level operations. Though some pilots were able to score using the Mig-3, it was almost gone from service by mid-1944, being based mostly in areas that saw little enemy action.

There are four schemes on this sheet. While they are all designed for the Classic Airframes kit, there is no reason to assume that they wouldn't work as well with the ICM kit.

First is an all white aircraft of the 6th Fighter Air Corps. Like most Mig-3s in this scheme, the outer upper wing panels were painted red to assist in finding downed aircraft in the snow. The red fin tip is given as a decal, but I think you'd be better off to paint it to match the spinner and upper wings.

Next is a 7th IAP Mig-3 from late 1941. It is in green and brown uppers with light blue undersides, The instructions state that besides no radio antennas (Soviet planes rarely had radio sets), it may have had upper wing stars (in itself unusual for a Soviet made aircraft).

Next is a Rumanian Mig-3. The Germans captured a number of these planes intact during the first weeks of their invasion of the Soviet Union. Several of these planes were used by the Rumanians for dissimilar combat training. The finish on this particular aircraft is gloss, since it was not being used for combat.

Finally, a mottled earth brown over olive with sky blue undersides Mig-3 from an unknown unit. This aircraft also has no radio antennas and no canopy. Again, this is not unusual as often Soviet pilots flew these early monoplane interceptors without a hood.

Review copy courtesy of my ever-expanding decal collection.

If you would like your product reviewed fairly and quickly by a site that averages well over 100,000 visits a month, please contact me or see other details in the Note to Contributors.