Thanks to Casemate Publishing and IPMSUSA for the review copy!

The Moskvawas specifically designed to be a US Polaris submarine hunter/killer in the Arctic Ocean, along with her* sister ship Leningradin 1962, and operational in 1967. Their primary weapon was helicopter-launched torpedoes and depth charges assisted with sonobuoys, although the ships themselves carried missiles and torpedoes. Their reason for being evaporated when the US switched to longer range Poseidon ICBMs, meaning the boomers did not need to be in the Arctic Sea anymore. Since survival of the Moskvain open waters was problematic, as was finding boomers in time before launches, these two ships were transferred to the Black Sea fleet. Moskvaspent her remaining time shuttling to and from the Atlantic, Mediterranean and Black Seas until being withdrawn from service in 1996 and sent to India for scrapping in 1998.

Bottom Line: Brass barrels in 1/700 scale for all WW2 Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) warships mounting 14cm (5.5in)/50cal guns, for mountings without (-058) or with (-059) blast bags.

What You Get

A 2 ¾ by 5 1/8 inch 2-piece cardboard card wrapped in clear plastic containing a small Ziploc bag with Instructions and another card with a small plastic bag holding 20 barrels taped to the card (Figure 1). For no blast bag mounts (-058), each barrel is 7mm long with a 1mm tab at the end. For mounts with blast bags, each barrel is 4.5mm long with a 1mm tab at the end (Figure 2). The tip has a fine hole that is difficult to see, but it’s there.

Thanks to Casemate Books and IPMS USA for the review copy!

Kagero Publishing has produced a large number of WW2 single-warship books from their Super Drawings in 3D series. These are reference works of the highest quality, detail, and interest for modelers. Each book has roughly 82-92 pages (92 for Fubuki), beginning with a short biography of the ship followed by a wealth of CG (computer-generated), three-dimensional, full-color drawings of appearance and fittings from a myriad of perspectives. For the Fubuki, a large, separate foldout of 1:200 scale B&W line drawings of side/top views in her 1941 fit, and details of fittings and close-ups in various scales on the obverse side are also included.

“Sink the Bismarck” was the very first war movie I ever saw as a young lad, with my Scottish Father telling me it involved “the greatest naval engagement undertaken by the Royal Navy in the Second World War”. The Bismarck, one of two Bismarck-class battleships laid down by Nazi Germany’s Kriegsmarine prior to the outbreak of the Second World War, was fast and extremely powerful, armaments wise. She had a very short career, undertaking only one offensive operation, in May 1941, codenamed Rheinübung. Together with the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, Bismarck sailed into the Atlantic on a mission to block shipping carrying supplies to Britain.

Veteran Models in Taiwan has been producing finely detailed multi-media aftermarket replacement parts for ship modelers for quite some time. Nicely crafted, their parts are a significant upgrade to model warships. They started in 1/350 Modern USN systems and have since branched into other Navies. Now they are offering modern Soviet/Russian systems.

If you have noticed Soviet and later Russian ships are busy, some would say crowded, with sensors and weapon systems. While functional, none of these are elegant in design, and the number of each provides redundancy to ensure survivability and reliability. Each one is hodge-podge of small detail not easily duplicated in the ejection molding process, no matter how sophisticated the molds. So Veteran Models move into this area is welcome by at least this modeler.