Hello!
This time I'd like to write about building bombs and rockets for my "storm bird". From what I read the bombs and rockets might have been the scariest things that the Il-2s carried, but their effectivity was very limited because the aircraft actually had no sight for neither bombs nor rockets (other than the white lines painted on the nose), so getting a hit was largely a matter of luck. The rockets were also said to generally have an unstable flight path...
Anyhow I started with the bombs. The kit gives you two old pattern FAB-250 bombs. You start each bomb with a cylinder made out of a rectangular piece of paper with two circular reinforced bulkheads. Of course you have to check them for fit before glueing them in place. The nose cone of each bomb is composed of several cones that you have to mate. I used about four thin strips of paper glued "radially". Luckily the cones fit nicely:


Each bomb has two fuses that are armed with a small propeller wheel. The kit would like you to cut out such wheels - well, I don't know how I could cut something like that b yhand and make it look good - so I scanned them wheels, processed them on my PC and then I put them out to my laser carver:
After that I had the wheels ready for glueing. I soaked them in CA to make them more resistent to handling.

Next step was to add the fins, the edges of the fins were touched up with dark grey, so that they looked purtier:

Last thing to add were the bomb racks:


I have holes in the wings where the bombs go, I already dry fitted them - they fir really nice and stay on without glue!
I also wanted to write about the rockets. The kit gives you four launch rails and parts for four rockets. I tried to build one, but it was disappointing. A little research showed that there were two families of rockets: RS-82 and RS-132. What was in the kit had the diameter of RS-82 (or less) but the length of RS-132. I decided to scratchbuild four of the RS-132. I started with a 4mm styrene rod that I turned using a power drill that grabbed the rod instead of a drill bit. I traced the outline of the fins on the cardboard using a laser carver, then cut them out traditionally. You can see the kit supplied rocket body in the photo below - compared to RS-132 rockets:

The rockets were painted using Humbrols and then put on launch rails (kit supplied, reinforced with thick cardboard):

Next thing I would like to work on would be all the small air inlets around the engine.
Thanks for lookin' and have a nice day
Paweł