The Ship

Launched in April 1943 and commissioned four months later, USS Intrepid (CV-11) participated in numerous actions in the central and western Pacific from early 1944 until the end of the Pacific War, including Leyte Gulf and Okinawa. She was hit twice by kamikazes but was still on station at the end of hostilities. Intrepid underwent modernization twice during the 1950s, which enclosed her bow and gave her an angled flight deck. Reclassified as an Anti-submarine Carrier (CVS-11), Intrepid was the lead ship for the NASA’s Mercury Aurora 7 and the Gemini 3 splashdown recovery. From April 1966 to February 1969, she made three deployments to the waters off Vietnam. She ended her active career back in the Atlantic and Mediterranean, being decommissioned in 1974 with over 30 years of service. In August 1982, Intrepid was reopened as a museum ship in New York harbor.

This kit comes to us from Mirage Models out of Poland and is the third boxing of this type of ship, the other two kits in the series being the HMS Anchusa and the HMS Zinnia. The kit itself is molded in a medium gray and consists of three sprues marked A,B,E (more on this in the review). The sprue connection points are a bit thicker than on a Revell or Tamyia kit, but are fairly easy to cut through with a number 11 blade or a breeze for a razor saw. The kit also gives you photoetch railings and main mast ladder and a small decal sheet with the ID numbers for the boat and a British Naval Flag for the rear flagstaff.

I enjoy looking at and reading about early military steam ships that participated in conflicts prior to WWII, such as the Spanish-American War or even the US Civil War. So when I saw this book up for review, I knew I had to read it.

Piotr Olender’s book on the Sino-Japanese Naval War qualifies as an eclectic subject. I’m not sure there are any model kits that feature ships from this war, though there are kits of ships from this general era. That’s where this book really shines. It covers, in detail, nearly all of the ships from both sides that took part in this war. Additionally, if features period photographs and has some excellent line drawings.

Where the text of some books of this type can be very dry and hard to read, this one is just the opposite. It’s very engaging, and even though the author does supply plenty of dry info in the form of tables and lists, he also tells a good story with the rest of his text.

The Type 052D is a Chinese designed and built missile destroyer. It features an active electronically scanned array radar system and it is refer by the Chinese media as the “Chinese Aegis”. There are two ships in the class completed and several more under construction. This kit represents the second ship of the class, “Changsha”.

Upon opening the box you find 13 sprues, 2 photo-etch frets (one of them for the nameplate), one clear sprue for the helicopter and a small decal sheet. The superstructure is packed on its individual box –inside the main box-. Despite the precautions my sample got slightly warped during transit (see photo).

This is a nice sized kit, with the hull being almost 18.5 inches long. There is no option for waterline hull, however there is an flat internal piece –that provides strength to the hull assembly- and some modeler might feel courageous enough to convert the full hull into a waterline model.

Set 3 of the Eduard Photo etch set for the Revell U-505 submarine in 1/72 scale consists of detail for the hull. I’m not a “PE guy” but as with Part 2 of the Eduard sets, when asked, I accepted the challenge since I had the opportunity to build the sub.

This set consists of one sheet of brass. Although the instructions do not show any removal of kit parts needed to install this set, I found that they adhere much better is you carefully remove the detail of the kit before gluing on the PE. It mostly consists of removing rivet detail.

I cut the parts from the fret with a sharp #11 blade and sanded them smooth with a sanding stick. The instructions are clear and the parts fit perfectly. This would be a great “first try” at using photo etch if you haven’t done so before.

My thanks to IPMS/USA and to Eduard for the opportunity to review this subject.