The Little World

We often forget that there was more than one side to the Cold War. West, East, and Neutral. And Neutral broke down to Undecided, Uneconomic, and Uninterested.

The DDR were trusted by their Soviet masters more than you’d think. The Russians were no fools – they knew the quality of the East Germans and had set mechanisms in place to control them effectively. The country formed the front line for possible advances to the west and first buffer for any movement to the east. Thus it had to have reasonably decent air defences under strict control. Here is where the MiG 21 came in.

The East Germans could be trusted to a certain extent to manage a sophisticated interceptor force with actual air-to-air weapons…backed up by a more sophisticated Soviet force over the border closer to Minsk, Kiev, and Moscow.

The type was fast enough and a good enough fighter to make it a front-line defender against F-100’s, F-105’s and any of the British or French jets of the time. Whether it could have been effective against the following generations of strike fighter is questionable, but fortunately no-one posed the question.

My model came as a gift from a fellow club member – Academy packaged it as a Finnish interceptor. This had no echo with me so I sought out another air force with a simple scheme. Fortunately there are a number of preserved examples in German air museums and a direct copy could be made.

The decals went down a treat on the French Grey Silver – it is almost an exact copy of the museum appearance.