BMP-2 upper hull
Ref AEF Designs #KT-112

The Dragon BMP-2 kits and their copies by Revell and Zvezda all feature a wrong upper hull that the AEF kit intends to fix. Indeed, it is obvious that the troop compartment roof hatches are not parallel as they should be. Other details are wrong like the vision blocks location.

The AEF kit comes as a pale yellow resin upper hull with the sides with the firing ports attached unlike in the plastic kits. The molding is correct and the fineness satisfactory. The vision blocks are solid and the locations of the plastic parts to add (hatches, ...) are represented like in the plastic kit. The interior is not represented except the BMPs characteristic turret ring.

The dimensions match Dragon lower hull and the fit should not be a problem after the removal of the excess of resin more specifically inside the bow.

While looking at the kit, we can see that AEF just made a copy of Dragon hull (in grey on the pictures) and reproduced some mistakes and, more disturbing, made new ones.

The modifications made by AEF

In fact, the only mistakes that AEF fixed are the roof hatch alignment and the deletion of the firing port on the right side of the engine compartment.

The vision blocks have been moved which is necessary but the new location is not good. The air intake behind the turret and between the hatches and the fuel filling inlet have disappeared as well as the towing cables retaining hooks.

The driver central vision block has disappeared and is replaced by a flat part.

The turret well is enlarged in order to use the interior set by AEF.

The mistakes not addressed by AEF

Both "humps" on the sides beside the turret should be moved backward. The bolted access hatch on the left of the turret is undersized.
The hatch on the glacis on the right of the driver compartment remains ill-placed. It should be more on the right. The protection in front of the turret ring has only 4 bolts instead of 5 on the real part.

AEF also provide a set of roadwheels to replace the kit ones. I don't know if this is a box filling mistake but the ones in my kit were MT-LB wheels.

As a conclusion, AEF didn't really address the plastic kits mistakes except the hatches alignment. Fortunately, with the exception of the glacis hatch, the mistakes are easy to fix by the average modeler. However for 25$, AEF could have released a more accurate set.

         
         
       
         
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