History Brief

The USS Indianapolis is a ship potentially more famous for her loss than her life. On July 30, 1945, after delivering components for the first atomic bomb, the Indianapolis was hit by two torpedoes from the HIJMS I-58. Her loss was not discovered before August 2nd, after many of her survivors met grisly ends at the hands of the elements and constant shark attacks.

The Portland-class cruiser was launched in 1931 in the post-Washington Naval Treaty world. Envisioned as an improvement on the Northampton class, the Portlands featured a lower tripod forward mast and improved protection. The Indianapolis had a busy wartime career, earning ten battle stars for her service. She also saw extensive modification through her life, losing much of her upper works to the torch to make room for additional AA guns.

A while back, I did an in-the-box review of this kit (click on the link above) that provided the basic info on what's in the box, etc., but I've now completed the model and thought I'd share that information as well.

Out of the box, this looks like a really nice kit and it falls into two categories that interest me, World War I and British ships, so I wanted to build it as well as I could. In addition, I wanted to try out one of those wooden veneer decks that so enhance the appearance of a finished model, and while a kit of this quality can make an impressive model right out of the box, I wanted to add the basic PE railings to finish it off. Conveniently, I was able to obtain both the PE railings and wood veneer deck from the company Artwox.

This is Model Art Magazine’s special quarterly issue that focuses on naval subjects. As with the regular Model Art Magazine, this is printed in Japanese with some English subtitles. This special ship model edition focuses on "Fleet Defenders.” They use examples from both World War II and modern-day, with a high focus on the IJN and the JMSDF.

The issue starts off with a section called “Only Ships – New Items.” They devote three pages to this with a multitude of color photos showing all the new ship models and aftermarket that is coming out on the market.

Background

The British Royal Navy has a long and proud tradition of Frigates in its history, dating back to the 1740’s. Smaller than a ship of the line, they were the workhorse of the British Royal Navy during the age of sail, combining a long range and the ability to operate independently, and performing a wide variety of missions more economically than the larger ships of the line.

In the modern British Royal Navy, the Frigate performs many of the same missions. Primarily designed as an anti-submarine warfare ship, they also perform convoy escort and independent patrols, hunting pirates and protecting sea lanes for merchantmen.

Ships are not something I normally model but I jumped at the chance to review this submarine. It is by a new company from Hong Kong and if this kit is a sample of things to come, I am surely looking forward to their future releases.

To begin with, I was thinking 1/700 or 1/350 scale when I asked to review this kit. It is in 1/200 scale and is rather long, 19 inches to be exact. The packaging is in a large sturdy box and the parts are molded in light grey plastic on 5 sprues. There is one sprue of clear parts for the OS2U-3 Kingfisher and two in black for the base.