Military Model Scene

Title: The MiG-3
Author: Dariusz Paduch
Publisher: Kagero
ISBN: 978-83-66673-91-5

Monograph 83 from Kagero takes on the subject of the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-3. A 96-page soft-cover book.
The story begins with the development and structure of this little fighter, prior to the outbreak of war with Germany. There some very good archive photos showing great detail on the type, accompanied with some drawings of detail elements which came from original manuals. There were problems with balance and the centre of gravity (cog), the engine, armament, range, spin characteristics and quality of build. Add a lack of training for pilots and there was clearly a lot that needed to be sorted out. Some of it was done more successfully than others. It tells us of how these problems were tackled in trials, or not. Then in the early stages of the war, how production aircraft performed, often in the hands of poorly trained aircrew. Just to give one illustration, there was a lack of spare parts, such as spark plugs, which needed replacing after as little as 3 hours flight time, plus clogging of filters due to dust which kept many aircraft unservicable when they were sorely needed. A lot of the archive photos come from German sources, showing crashed or abandonned airframes on captured airfields. Added to all this, the final pages of the book feature scale plans of the MiG-3, in 1/72, 1/48 and 1/32 scales plus 5 pages (one of them being the back cover) of fine colour profiles.
The name of MiG aircraft is perhaps best known for their many jet designs from the Cold War and beyond. Perhaps we overlook their earlier WW2 era designs such as the little MiG-3, which faced plenty of hurdles to be overcome in its' service history.
Thanks to Casemate, the UK distributors for Kagero for our review copy.

Robin