History

I’ll have to admit a personal fascination with the story of the USS Indianapolis. I read a magazine article about the tragedy during my high school years, which was probably close to the 30^th anniversary. In July of 1945, the Indianapolis, a Portland-class heavy cruiser, was tasked with the top secret mission of delivering parts for the first atomic bomb to be dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. On the next leg of her journey, the ship was struck by two torpedoes from a Japanese submarine. The ship sank within minutes, leaving almost 900 of her surviving crew stranded in the Pacific Ocean at the mercy of the elements, dehydration, and marauding sharks. After three days in the water, they were finally rescued, but only 317 of the men survived the ordeal.

Upon opening the kit I found the plastic to be delicately molded in an easy to paint light grey styrene with fair detail for a model its scale and size. The parts count is rather high because many of the details are molded as fine separate niceties. Very small (less than an 1/8th inch) parts such as the masks, life rafts, antenna, and supports are molded in this fine plastic and make use of magnifying devices necessary.

Parts count:

Trumpeter’s recent 1/200 scale Bismarck is a gigantic kit at over four feet in length! Using plastic for her guns is, frankly, a serious disservice. Fortunately, Master Model has fired a salvo of several metal barrel upgrade sets aimed squarely at this large-scale Bismarck.

The three Bismarck sets being reviewed are:

• SM-200-06 - 1/200 German battleship Bismarck - main gun barrels - 38 cm (15in) SKC/34 (8 pcs) - $24.00
• SM-200-07 - 1/200 German battleship Bismarck - secondary and heavy AA armament barrels - 15cm (12 pcs), 10,5 cm (16 pcs) - $15.00
• SM-200-08 - 1/200 German battleship Bismarck - anti-aircraft armament barrels - 37 mm SKC/30 (16 pcs), 20 mm C/30 (12 pcs), 20 mm C/38 (8 pcs) - $15.00

Master Model has excelled in creating amazing turned metal products at reasonable prices, and these upgrades are no exception. The main guns are huge, well machined, and beautiful. The secondary and AA guns have astounding detail.

Master Model, maker of some amazingly detailed metal replacement parts, offers a new turned-metal barrel upgraded set for the 1/350 scale Zvezda kit of the HMS Dreadnought. The set consists of ten turned-aluminum 12in main gun barrels and twelve turned-brass 12-pounder secondary gun barrels. Both barrel sizes are spectacularly cut.

Using the Master Model barrels couldn’t be easier, as they feature a small mounting peg at the breech end of the barrels. Simply remove an existing kit barrel, drill a small hole in its place, and insert and secure the Master barrel’s mounting peg into the hole with a bit of CA glue.

Like many of the Master Model barrel sets, this set is not only limited to use with the HMS Dreadnought, as both the 12-inch and 12-pounder guns were found on many other British ships before and during WWI.

Model Art Magazine is a monthly publication covering aircraft, armor, ships and car modeling. Model Art began releasing magazines in 1966, and has evolved over the past forty-six years. They also release many special issues during the year, as is the case of this sample.

This issue covers IJN destroyers that were produced from 1918 - 1941. The classes include: Minekaze, Kamikaze, Momi, Wakatake, Mutsuki, Fufuki (Tokugata), Hatsuharu, Shiratsuyu, Asashio, Kagero, Yugumo, Akizuki, Shimakasze and Matsu. The magazine is broken down into ten sections.