Reviews of products for scale ship models, including submarines.

Book Author(s)
Duke Hawkins
Review Author
Paul R. Brown
Published on
February 23, 2021
Company
HMH Publications
MSRP
$31.00

This is the first book of a potential new series from Duke Hawkins Books on aircraft carriers. The volume grew out of its earlier book on the Harrier II/AV-8B, as while working on that book, several of their photographers were given the opportunity to visit the Juan Carlos I while she was at sea conducting operations and ended up with an extensive collection of photographs not just of the Spanish Navy’s use of the EAV-8B Matador II (Harrier II Plus), but also of the ship itself and its other facets of its operations – helicopter and amphibious operations.

Book Author(s)
Venner F Milewski Jr
Review Author
Dave Morrissette
Published on
January 24, 2021
Company
Casemate UK
MSRP
$52.00

Fighting Ships of the US Navy is a series dedicated to exploring each ship in the US Navy’s inventory since 1883. In Volume One, the author, Venner F Milewski, Jr., starts with the Fleet Aircraft Carriers in the beginning. Overall, the book has a plethora of data and information of each aircraft carrier used by the US during the last 100 years starting with the USS Langley. Taking a look at the Table of contents shows what I mean:

Review Author
Allan Murrell
Published on
November 13, 2020
Company
AFV Club
Scale
1/700
MSRP
$125.00

AFV Club has provided very nice detail-up version of the Knox Class Frigate. It’s the standard kit plus a resin upper hull, a large PE sheet and resin diorama base.

  • One light grey sprue
  • One large photoetch sheet
  • One resin lower hull
  • One resin base
  • One small decal sheet
  • Two instruction sheets (one for the kit and one for the PE parts)

The basic kit is very rudimentary, so the addition of the PE and Resin parts make this a very interesting kit to build. A couple of the areas where you need to remove details that will be replaced by PE parts will need filling, for example on part 20.

The PE instruction sheet is very well presented and detailed. I also suggest you heat treat the PE parts before starting to form them as they were very fragile and will break at the fold lines. The other area to be careful is the steps on the ladders as these snap off easily.

Book Author(s)
Ryan K. Noppen
Review Author
Bill Kluge
Published on
September 25, 2020
Company
Osprey Publishing
MSRP
$19.00

Much like its European contemporary France, the Netherlands entered the twentieth century with a considerable empire, a strong naval tradition, and a current navy badly in need of modernization and decisive political direction. Being on friendly terms with Great Britain through much of the 19th century ensured that the far-flung Dutch imperial possessions in the East Indies could count on the protection of the Royal Navy. The Royal Netherlands Navy need only keep small, inexpensive coastal vessels on hand for immediate defense. However, by the early 20th century, the Second Boer War with Britain in South Africa, coupled with Japanese naval expansion following Japan’s victory in the Russo-Japanese War changed the calculus in the minds of Dutch naval leadership.

Review Author
Mike Kellner
Published on
September 20, 2020
Company
Italeri
Scale
1/35
MSRP
$119.00

In Part One, I alluded to some issues I had with the windows in the kit so I’ll start with that. The portholes had acetate to represent the glass, which turned out to be larger than the flat spots they were intended to nestle into, so most had to be trimmed down. The same needed to be done for the ones that were in the deck.

Although the deck is meant to be screwed down, I elected to glue it as well, and discovered a section on each side of the deck that had flash which I hadn’t caught, and I paid for that by having to remove a glued-up deck just for that purpose, but in the end it turned out OK. Word to the wise: make sure that’s cleaned up before putting the deck on.

Review Author
Allan Murrell
Published on
September 5, 2020
Company
OKB Grigorov
Scale
1/700
MSRP
$17.00

OKB Grigorov has provided another very nice kit with the Israeli Gal submarine which represent a diesel-electric submarine developed and constructed in the Vickers Shipyard in the UK for the Israeli Navy. They were based on the German 206 class submarines. The “Gal” (Hebrew for Wave) class entered service in the late 1970’s and were all replaced by the Dolphin Class by the early 2000’s.

  • One resin part
  • Two very small photoetch sheets

The detail quality is great; The resin submarine is very delicate an you need to be carefully removed from the resin base.

There was no instruction sheet provided, this was not a problem as it was a simple build.

The Assembly is quick and easy.

The metal stand is a good addition to the kit.

The final part is painting.

This is my seventh one of these great kits and I really enjoy building these and they make a wonderful display all lined up.

Review Author
Mike Kellner
Published on
September 1, 2020
Company
Italeri
Scale
1/35
MSRP
$119.00

Italeri’s 1/35 scale version of the Vosper MTB 74 which was used on the 28 March 1942 Operation Chariot Saint Nazaire raid comes in a big box. It was a specially configured boat having most of its offensive armament removed and having two torpedo tubes added to the foredeck. It also had special muffler silencers added. It successfully hit the nets which protected the docks, torpedoed the lock gates and achieved its mission, but was sunk on its way back home. Chariot achieved its goal of disabling the only dry dock in German-occupied France which could handle the Tirpitz so that forced her to return to Germany for any repairs.

The kit is molded in gray plastic and includes a fret of photoetched details, a decal sheet, a clear sheet, screw, ropes, and seven crew figures. The hull is in two pieces with just the aft transom area being separate.

Review Author
Luke R. Bucci, PhD
Published on
September 1, 2020
Company
Lion Roar
Scale
1/700
MSRP
$27.00

Thanks to DragonUSA for supplying the resin/PE set for review and IPMSUSA staff for handling the request and publishing this review.

Bottom Line: LionRoar has produced a line of WW2 US Navy barges, either mixed resin + photoetch or all metal photoetch. Few parts, a tricky PE folding and assembly job for an unusual subject that would be a necessity for dockyard dioramas. Would have liked better instructions and decals for the barge YD number, but a quirky, fun build. Change of pace weekender for the more advanced modeler.

Book Author(s)
Witold Koszela
Review Author
George Cully
Published on
August 20, 2020
Company
Mushroom Model Publications - MMP Books
MSRP
$42.00

The Royal Navy’s HMS Nelson and HMS Rodney came about in an unusual way, and that helps to explain their unusual silhouette: all three of both ships’ triple barrel main gun turrets were mounted on the foredeck, and their massive bridge superstructures and secondary armament suites were sited aft. Nothing else afloat looked quite like them. These ships were named after two famous British admirals: George Rodney, victor of the Battle of Cape St. Vincent (1780) and the Battle of the Saintes (1782), and Horatio Nelson, who won the Battle of the Nile (1798) and the Battle of Trafalgar (1805).

Review Author
Frank Landrus
Published on
August 2, 2020
Company
Master Model
Scale
1/350
MSRP
$20.00

SMS Seydlitz was a battlecruiser of the German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy), built in Hamburg. She was ordered in 1910 and commissioned in May 1913, the fourth battlecruiser built for the High Seas Fleet. She was named after Friedrich Wilhelm von Seydlitz, a Prussian general during the reign of King Frederick the Great and the Seven Years' War. Seydlitz represented the culmination of the first generation of German battlecruisers, which had started with the Von der Tann in 1906 and continued with the pair of Moltke-class battlecruisers ordered in 1907 and 1908. Seydlitz featured several incremental improvements over the preceding designs, including a redesigned propulsion system and an improved armor layout. As with the rest of the German battlecruisers that survived the war, the ship was interned in Scapa Flow in 1918. The ship, along with the rest of the High Seas Fleet, was scuttled in June 1919, to prevent her seizure by the British Royal Navy.