Defense of The Outpost - Scrambling The Fighters

The alien invaders have been spotted the fighters have been scrambled, and ground forces take their positions. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

Putting It All Together: MPC's No. 3007 US Air Force Missile Rocket Command Playset

Soooo, since the 22nd of February I've been posting a series of nifty Cold War toys by MPC. Just like I did with MPC's 'Battle Front' playset, I dangled the carrot in front of the horse by posting the set contents one at a time before finally revealing what set they all went to. That brings us to today. This set was one of many space-themed playsets by MPC - some large, some small - utilizing their iconic ringhand figures and a host of cool toys.

Comparing the kit contents as listed on the box cover, the box artwork, and the instruction sheet, leaves the collector with some unanswered questions. First of all, as I've said in the past, there never seems to be mint-in-box unopened large MPC sets for collector's to peruse and take notes on. That leaves us with sets that have been picked over, added to, or taken from. My set included all of the main vehicles but was missing the 'astronauts' and gear, but who knows whether they were original to this box.

Before we go any further let's take a look at the set contents as listed on the box:

CONTENTS LISTED ON BOX

-Multi-Rocket Firing Skysweeper

-Mobile Rocket Launcher & Missile

-Rocket Firing Commander Missile and Carrier

-Flying Helicopter & Automatic Spring Powered Helicopter Launching Station

-3 Shooting Orbital Missiles and Gantry's

-2 Shooting Multi-Rocket Launchers & Rockets

-Command Jeep

-Astronauts and Missile Men

DISCONNECTS

The major  set components are featured quite nicely on the box artwork which helps in set breakdown but there are definite omissions and vagueness which proves that the artists simply took their artistic license with the box art or they simply weren't provided with the correct set contents by the marketing guys.

-Multi-Rocket Firing Skysweeper: What the heck is this??? MPC's instructions sheets refer to this as a "MPC Mobile Missile Vehicle with Multi-Rocket Launcher"

-Mobile Rocket Launcher & Missile: Another 'What-the'heck"? Again, MPC's instructions refer to this as "MPC Mobile Missile Vehicle with Orbital Missile Gantry & Tower

-Rocket Firing Commander Missile and Carrier. In other sets this was referred to as a "Missile Carrier" on the box cover while the instruction sheets referred to it as a "Rocket Carrier". The instruction sheet in this playset refers to it as a "Rocket Carrier" and was a staple of space and Little Green Army Men playsets.

-Flying Helicopter & Automatic Spring Powered Helicopter Launching Station: We're good here! (yay!) ALTHOUGH, while the box art clearly shows the helicopter, the launching station is obscured in the background.

-3 Shooting Orbital Missiles and Gantry's: Good here too!

-2 Shooting Multi-Rocket Launchers & Rockets: Good here as well!

-Command Jeep: This piece is totally left out of the artwork

-Astronauts and Missile Men: Arrrgh! I hate it it when they do this. First of all, the figure count is not listed anywhere, either on the box or the instruction sheets. It is somewhat implied in the artwork but as you'll notice only a couple figures actually look like something - the rest are meaningless blobs.

Sooo, here's my take on it. The artwork appears to show 3 ringhand astronauts wearing the specialized gear made for them. Okay, fine. IF I surmise (assume, guess, imply, whatever...) that MPC put a 'standard' count of 12 figures in their sets (absolutely, totally arbitrary figure count on my part) that would leave 9 'Missile Men' - aka ringhand figures with the standard G.I. gear. As for colors? Heck, your guess is as good as mine. I favor the gold colored ringhands for astronauts so that's what I photographed but they could have been any color. In fact all 12 figures could have been OD with two different sets of accessories, one set for the astronauts, one set for the G.I.'s/Missile men. I hope you've liked our coverage of this lesser known MPC playset.

Enjoy! Opa Fritz and Oma Bettina

MPC Mobile Missile Vehicle with Multi-Rocket Launcher - Olive Green

What do you get when you have the Multi-Rocket launcher mated to the Mobile Missile Vehicle chassis? One bad-ass toy! :-) This rig is ready to r-u-u-u-u-m-b-l-e. I took these photos last August before taking stock of all my MPC gear. I could actually have placed four yellow rockets in the standby tubes but what the hey, it is what it is. Let's pretend one of the rockets was already launched! The springs in the upper launch tubes will hurl these a pretty good distance, unfortunately they tend to miss-fire. The force of the spring combined with the slippery plastic, and just moving the toy around will cause the rocket to slowly rotate within the tube and fire - as I found out the hard way when I got boinked in the noggin' while taking photos! hahahaha. If I want to, I can mount any of the rocket launchers or any of the missile towers on any of the different colored Mobile Missile Vehicles I have and just have a field day taking photos. And therein lies the problem. I could actually be there all day just taking pics of the different color combinations: naw - ain't gonna do it! Sooo, let's call it a day with this series of photos and we'll move on to another toy in the next couple of days. Enjoy! Opa Fritz and Oma Bettina

MPC Multi-Rocket Launcher - Yellow-Yellow

Here's another color combo of MPC's Multi-Rocket Launcher. The base and launcher tube castings were placed in the playset boxes as separate pieces, so you could've ended up any color combination of base and launcher. Enjoy!

Here's a fully loaded launcher but one would have to get hold of extra rockets to outfit it like this because the sets only included four per launcher assembly.

MPC Multi-Rocket Launcher - Yellow-Red

Here's another MPC accessory commonly found in their space-themed sets, the Multi-Rocket Launcher. It too was used as both a stand-alone accessory as well modular component to the Mobile Missile Vehicle chassis. There are four tubes each in two rows - one atop the other. The top row is equipped with springs making these the launch tubes. The bottom row of tubes are for storage. But here's the kicker: I don't ever recall MPC including eight rockets in their sets. Basically you got four rockets and that-was-that!  However, today repo rockets in gray SP are available for a decent price. The launcher measures 4 1/2" (11.43cm) W x 3 1/8" (7.93cm) D x 3 1/2" (8.89cm) H (without rockets) Enjoy! Opa Fritz and Oma Bettina