The Buk is a family of self-propelled, medium-range surface-to-air missile systems developed by the Soviet Union and its successor state, the Russian Federation, and designed to counter cruise missiles, smart bombs, fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft, and unmanned aerial vehicles. In the Russian A2AD network, Buk is located between the S-200/300/400 systems above and the point defense Tor and Pantsir type systems below.

A standard Buk battalion consists of a command vehicle, target acquisition radar (TAR) vehicle, six transporter erector launcher and radar (TELAR) vehicles and three transporter erector launcher (TEL) vehicles. A Buk missile battery consists of two TELAR (four missiles apiece) and one TEL vehicle, with six missiles for a full complement of 14 missiles.

The Buk missile system is the successor to the NIIP/Vympel 2K12 Kub (NATO reporting name SA-6 "Gainful"). The first version of Buk adopted into service carried the GRAU designation 9K37 Buk and was identified in the west with the NATO reporting name "Gadfly" as well as the US Department of Defense (DoD) designation SA-11

Notorious for it's use in the 2014-2022 Ukrainian-Russo War over Donbas and Lubansk where it shot down a Malaysian Airliner killing all on board in July 2014 and the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine where both sides have used it for local air defense.

The box has eleven sprues of parts in tan plastic, three hull parts in tthe same tan styrene, a sprue of clear parts for the windows, a sprue of black poly-caps for the wheels, a sheet of Photo-Etched (PE) brass, decal sheet, the instruction booklet, separate color and markings guide.

The parts are free of flash and with crisp sharp details that Meng is well known for. Also included is Meng's jig for doing the link tracks.

I learned from my first build with Meng tracks to drill out the link holes so that the connecting pins would fit in. I put a 0.070” drill bit into a pin vice and did the tedious task of drilling out the pair of holes of each link. Afterwards, I attached each set of 10 links into the jig and inserted the pins into each one. Unlike my previous T-72 build, I didn't have an issue with bent or broken pins. I secured each one with a small amount of Tamiya extra thin cement so they wouldn't pop out. I completed two sets of equal length tracks.

Next up I built each of the four SAMs. Each was almost a kit onto itself thanks to the number of small fins. I assembled each missile main body using CA glue to eliminate the headache of the phantom seam. It took a night of sanding down with various grades of wet/dry sandpaper and polishing cloths to remove the seams. I redid any details I damaged/removed via sanding using an exacto knife.

The hull and turret were pretty easy to assemble. I left off any small details that would make masking or painting a headache. The turret and hull were kept separate till post painting.

The missiles were painted first. I sprayed the rear fins and nose cone flat white. When the paint was dry, I masked off those areas and the main body was painted Tamiya XF-71 Cockpit Green which was the closest color I had to the green Russia uses for the Buk series of SAM. The missile's exhaust nozzle interior was painted red brown using a paint brush.

At the time I started building it, I initially wanted to make a Russian version but decided against it after I remembered that this system in Russian hands shot down a Malaysian airliner in 2014 during the Donbass/Luhansk/Crimea war so I decided on a more neutral (now NATO member) Finland. I did think about the Ukrainian version, but passed because I didn't want to do digital camouflage at the time.

I used NATO black, brown and green for three of the four main colors. I used Mission Models Modern Russian Green for the light green portion of the camouflage and Mission Models Modern Russian OD for the targeting radome. I used homemade masks made from painters tape to cover up each of the colors. Easier said than done.

The tracks got a coat of metallic grey and steel. The missiles and the main chassis got a light coat of gloss for the decals. I added the few small decals to the chassis while the missiles were covered in decals.

Photos of these mobile SAMs showed them to be pretty clean so I left the paint alone. The model got a final coat of flat.

I added the various small bits and pieces that I left off for painting. Many of these parts were painted Modern Russian OD based on the 3D views from the paint guide. This next to final step took a while as there were a lot of them including tools that had to be brush painted as wood or steel. The missiles were glued into their cradles.

I added the prepainted road wheels and rollers and added the final touch of tracks. I glued them in place because it was easier.