Review: ICM model kit BM-13-16 Multiple Launch Rocket System (ZiL-131)

I'm working on this kit right now. It was an inexpensive throw-in I added to an online order at Micro-Mark and even though 1/72 scale vehicles aren't my thing I figured for cheap it would be good practice. ICM has a good reputation for detail, so why not for less than ten bucks?

Welp, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. This is an early ICM kit, with an impressive amount of detail for a 72nd scale kit, but there were also many challenges.

PROS

• Detail: Most of the parts are really sharp with detail. 
• The truck cab's outer shell comes molded in a single piece and the front grille has fine slots to represent the gaps between the grill's bars and it's really a good looking part. 
• The side-mounted rear view mirrors are impressive with super thin plastic mounting rods, but they look pretty good, given the tiny size.
• The lattice of steel bars used to construct the rocket rack looks good too, though it was tough to build.
• The kit includes the headlight guards and they look good on the model. In some 1/35 scale kits, you might have to buy third-party add-ons to get this or better versions of it.
• Building the underside of the truck involves very nearly putting together a whole drive train and differential set. Automobile kits in 1/24 often have a unibody molding for the underside, so again, for a 1/72 kit this is pretty awesome.
• Cheap: It's a small kit but I think it retails for $16 and I got it on sale for $6.

CONS

• Errors 
• Instructions mislabel some of the part numbers
• The spare tire rack has a pair of vertical slats on the outside edges of the rack that appear to help secure the tires, but there's no way you can fit the tires into the rack with these slats on. Even the box art picture doesn't have these, showing just the spare tires protruding beyond the width of the truck.
• There is a fixture to mount stabilizers on the rear of the truck. The stabilizing struts are glued to a brace that is supposed to fit over the rear width of the main chassis. But the brace is molded to the same width of the chassis, not the roughly 1/8 inch larger that it needs to be. So I had to cut the brace in the middle, glue each half to its respective side on the truck, then fill the gap with a piece of plastic. This error and the spare tire issue reminded me of software where it's pretty obvious the people that design the software don't use it.
• The rocket rack is an impressive array of I-beam like parts that glue together and fit into the lattice frame. Each I-beam has three small rods molded into it that glue to the next beam. that But some of the moldings are not correct. 
• One of the I-beams has only short connecting rods so it doesn't go the proper distance to connect to the next beam. 
• Another I-beam had two rods and was missing a third.
• The rods on the outer edges of the assembly are supposed to have molded nubs to represent the start/end of the connecting rod. Only one was molded to have it so it provides a nice end cap on one side. There was no other I-beam with the small nubs molded on the one side. As luck would have it, I had made an earlier error in my assembly and placed one of the I-beams out of order; I had to cut the three connecting rods off of that beam to convert it from a male into a female connection. I was able to further cut down the rods and simulate the nubs by gluing these small components on the opposite side of the assembly. I kit bashed from parts in the same kit, if you will. (updated thought: it is possible I incorrectly assembled the first I-beam backwards, meaning the beam that had too-short rods was actually supposed to be turned around so the shorter rods could be the starter nubs I was missing, but the instructions do not indicate this, and if that were the case, how was the back of this part then supposed to be attached to the other beams?).
• Fitment is a mixed bag. Some parts went together perfectly. Others were not sized well (such as the stabilizer bracket, noted above), or required tricky assembly. 
• Instructions: in addition to the errors, it could have done a better job of breaking down the order of assembly, and some parts, like the lattice framework to hold up the rocket rack, could have been broken down into more steps and pictures.
• Some flash needed to be cleaned up, but it wasn't too bad. 
• Very fine parts broke easily. When I first reviewed the sprues after opening the box, I was very impressed with the detail ICM was able to put into the plastic kit. This kit does not have any photo etched parts. And I thought, "wow, with detail this good, who needs the hassle of photo etch?". Then as I was working with the long thin rods used for engine tubing or long handles, they would break just from the force of cutting off the sprue. And I would say, "Oh, that's why they have photo etch." Some of these I was able to carefully repair with cement, others I just gave up on.

Conclusion

Ok, so the kit has problems. In addition to the listed cons, I also had a mistake where I swapped two parts that looked very similar, though that's on me for not paying better attention and why I didn't list it in the cons. 

There are also super tiny parts that I either lost or broke. I mention the easily broken ones in the cons, but losing stuff my fault, and you have to expect some tiny parts in a 72nd scale kit.

This is a kit that I believe is early in the ICM lineage so I can chalk up some of this to youth. I don't know when ICM officially started making models but some reports are that it was in the early 1990s. That's where this kit is from, so it's quite possible the company learned a lot since then and their modern kits are much better.

Would I have bought this kit if I knew better? Yes, I'd still buy this kit. It was quite reasonably priced, I learned a lot with it, its detail is very good for the scale, and if you are dedicated you can build it up into a very presentable model.