Zvezda Aircraft 1/72 MiG27 Flogger D Soviet Fighter/Bomber Kit

In the early 1970s the Zvezda-Strela design bureau was developing its Kh-25L (AS-10 'Karen') laser-guided tactical missile, a successor to the Kh-23 (AS-7 'Kerry'). The Warsaw Pact air forces had a requirement for tactical anti-radiation missile for the suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) role. When the Zvezda-Strela looked at producing a SEAD variant of the Kh-25L (Izdeliye 69) it found the missile had insufficient range to keep the launch aircraft out of the engagement envelope of NATO SAMs. The design team, therefore, took the basic Kh-25 configuration and changed all its internal components while also refining its aerodynamic layout. The result was a quite distinct missile variant, the Kh-27PS (Izdeliye 72). The Kh-27PS is the weapon identified by NATO as the AS-12 'Kegler' although soon after it was introduced to service it was joined by a similarly modified version of the Kh-25, the Kh-25MP. This was one of the second-generation of improved Kh-25M weapons that adopted many of the design improvements originally developed for the Kh-27PS. In the early 1980s, production and development of the Kh-27PS were switched to the Kh-25MP, which was an essentially identical weapon, in both appearance and capability. Many Western sources have applied the AS-12 'Kegler' designation interchangeably to the Kh-27PS and Kh-25MP. However, they were separate designs, undertaken at different times and with distinct Russian Izdeliye (article), or product, designations. The baseline Kh-27PS was Izdeliye 72.