Battle Phrogs 100

MAW decals released in December 2008 their sheet "Battle Phrogs 100" intended for the Academy CH-46E Sea Knight kit in scale 1/48. It includes markings for 10 different machines, stencils and a CD-ROM with reference pictures of the original subjects covered on this sheet.

Decals

The main decalsheet includes 10 options for USMC CH-46E's from HMM-161, HMM-162, HMM-163, HMM-165 and HMM-166. Two options are for early E versions in field green. One option is provided for a Seaknight wearing the land scheme commo pattern. The other 7 options have the standard grey colour but with some very interesting door art. In my opinion it is a bit pity that you only get one option that wears the colourfull land scheme.

The quality of the decals is (as expected) just excellent. All decals have a very thin carrier and come with very fine and crisp details. Even smaller letters of the stencils are still readable. The decals were printed by Cartograf in Italy.

A second and third sheet include walkways and a lot of fine stencilling for your Battle Phrog. These are also seperatly available as 48-MAW020 CH-46 Green/Land Camo Stencils.

Also included on a sheet with decals for the Chaff/Flare buckets and a set of silver, yellow and dark blue loads. If you want you could mix the loads by cutting apart the provided decals.

Note: One small addon sheet is included that replaces a decal (number 3969) on the mainsheet which has a strange yellow imperfection.

Markings

Here is a detailled overview of the 10 aircrafts that can be build:

• CH-46E BuNo 153975 ModEx 601, HMM-166 U.S.S. Tripoli 1987 (Field Green)
• CH-46E BuNo 154825 ModEx 605, HMM-166 U.S.S. Tripoli 1987 (Field Green)
• CH-46E BuNo 154034 ModEx 1, HMM-162 U.S.S. Wasp 1991 (Land scheme)
• CH-46E BuNo 156445 ModEx 07, HMM-161 (Grey)
• CH-46E BuNo 157703 ModEx 02, HMM-165 Al Asad 2007 (Grey)
• CH-46E BuNo 154027 ModEx 03, HMM-165 Al Asad 2007 (Grey)
• CH-46E BuNo 153969 ModEx 07, HMM-165 Al Asad 2007 (Grey)
• CH-46E BuNo 156457 ModEx 12, HMM-165 Al Asad 2007 (Grey)
• CH-46E BuNo 157693 ModEx 01, HMM-163 (Grey)
• CH-46E BuNo 154790 Rockey 604, HMM-166 15th MEU (Grey)

The first thee helicopters are early E's and had the smaller stub wings that are on the A, D, and F. In order to build these 3 aircraft you will need to:

• 1) have both the CH/HH-46D and CH-46E kits and use the stub wings out of the D on the E
• 2) use MAW 48-R009 F/Early E conversion set on the CH/HH-46D kit.

Reference Pictures

Next to the excellent decals you get an impressive CD-Rom containing reference pictures, videos and the instruction sheets in PDF Format.

You get a total of 136 high quality reference pictures of the CH-43E. All pictures are of high quality (dimensions go up to 2736x1824px). Combined they take up 366 Megabytes of storage. All pictures are categorised in folders, which makes finding the right picture easier:

• Details: A total of 107 pictures covering the cockpit, cabin, engines, nose, lower fuselage, port sponson, port fuselage, sloamer frame, starboard fuselage and sponson, aft rotor and doghouse, forward rotor and doghouse, lower fuselage and the ramp gun mount.
• In Action: 27 pictures showing a Marines CH-46 during an exercise, a few videos as well as a collection of links to interesting Youtube video's.
• HMN-161: 4 pictures covering a global view of a HMN-161 Seaknight.
• HMN-165: 13 pictures covering the 4 aircraft from HMN-165 including doorart close-ups

Instruction sheets

The CD-Rom contains the instruction sheets in PDF format. The colour instructions are clear and include one side view and 1 frontview of each aircraft. The instruction sheets for the stencilling contain 2 sideviews, a frontview, a top and a bottom view for the different camo/version combinations. Next to the graphics MAW also included some building notes and a list of recommended kits and aftermarket products from Eduard/Cobra Company/MAW.

Below you can see 2 samples of the instructions:

Conclusion

Another great sheet by MAW Decals. Based on the quality of the printing, the interesting markings and the reference CD-Rom I can only recommend these decals. In my opinion it is however a pitty that you only one get one option wearing the interesting land scheme.