Model Forum / General / Models / January 2006

OK, a mix of accuracy and flat out stupid engineering:

Hull-

Forefoot not quite bulbous enough, odd contour to stem.
Armor belt poorly defined at ends, upper and lower ends do not line up.
Bilge keels half the depth they should be.
No docking keels.
Outboard shaft exits not correct (nobody has ever gotten them correct)
there should be a recess in the hull the shaft enters, the hard abgle at
the rear of the housing is incorrect.
Inboard prop skegs slightly too thin, prop shaft housings only molded on
the outboard face, hull/skeg joint too sharp should be faired more.
Inner end of skef tunnel needs filling and fairing into hull for
smoother transition.
Rudder attachment points very weak, requires extreme care to get the
rudders mounted straight and plumb.
Bilge vents aft or armor belt not consistently molded.
Angled widget above armor belt near turret #3 (garbage chutes in fact)
not quite right.
Hawse pipe exits at bow less than half the correct size and too sharply
molded.
Paravane "eyes" on extreme bow lack "eyebrows", no paravane attachement
point on forefoot.
All cocks (open or closed) have significant mold seam, not consistent
chock to chock, all chocks too square.
Upper to lower hull fit ppor to fair, need to cut stiffeners in upper
hull, line up and glue a side, let dry, repeat for other side, install
new styrene bar stiffeners then putty and sand.....losing even more
definition at the ends of the armor belt.

Main deck-
Deck joints have Trumpeter's typical problem, the alignment tabs
INCREASE the gap, you have to cut them off and file the edges with a
slight back cut then reinforce with heavy styrene strip after tacking
together (I will give them credit where it's due, the planking will
cross the seam aligned *IF* you do it right).
Hawse pipes are shallow depressions with no surrounding lip, they should
have a heavy lip above the deck and be yawning holes leading into the
actual hawse pipe, prominent windlass drum missing outer aft end of
hawsepipes.
Some anchor chain scuff plates missing, gaps between existing plates too
large.
Anchor chain entry into chain locker too small and too square to base.
No anchor chain holdbacks.
Joke of a molded on anchor chain, waste of machining time.
Between breakwater and hawse pipes all hatches molded too proud off the
deck, the two large companionways next to the capstans far too high and
should have watertight doors.
Hatch next to #2 turret stbd side not high enough off deck.
Hatch coamings on maindeck at aft end of superstructure see comment
about forward companionways.
Aft deck hatches and plates suffer from being too high or too low,
compaionway just behind turret 3# need WT door.
Director tubs molded into deck, draft angle visible, separate parts
would be better.
All vents noticeably out of round with heavy mold seams.
Vents used outboard of capstans should be windlass drums.
All 40MM gun tubs have ejector pin marks inside the tubs, they belong on
the other side or on the sprue just off the tubs.
All 20mm and 40mm splinter shields approx. .020" too low (twenty
thousandths doesn't sound like much but it's 20% of the existing height).
20mm RSA (Ready Storage Ammo)lockers inconsistent for latch detail
"heaviness", separate parts do not match RSA's molded in place.

01 level-
Latch detail on Upright RSA's and storage lockers too heavy.
Sidewalls nice touch, fit at ends poor.
Entire 01 level approx. .060" too high.
Deck overlay nice touch since it hides the sidewall seam, fit so-so
(they should have carried this over to all assemblies with sidewalls).
Four opneings in 01 level deck are open companionways and should have
coamings (sidewalls should NOT have TW doors molded where the lower ends
of the stairs are, they should be openings, they never had doors....it
would of course be nice had the doors they did mold lie up with the
actual stair ends....note I do not rag the "aztec stairs" here since you
can't tell once the sidewalls are in place).
Previous comments re: splinter shields and tubs still applies.

Forward superstructure assembly-
Armored conning tower has machining marks that would be a nice and
extremely accurate touch........had they not been perpendicular to the
casting bands on the real thing.
Gaps behind conning tower need to be filled after mounting.
Pin marks again on wrong wide of parts or should have been moved to
areas covered by toher assemblies.
Prominent spray shield missing stbd side WT door lowest level middle of
structure.
Fag bags should have been separate parts, bottom should be close and top
open (they got that backwards) with a bar across the middle of the top.
Mold seams to clean up inside many of the spray shields.
Tower assembly too sqaure, they corners of the very top (C1 & C2) have
the correct curve and that should have been carried down along the
corners of C12, C13, C19 & C33.....ladder run diagonally instead of
vertically.
Fit so-so for all parts.

Stacks-
Not even close to correct cross-section, about 20-30% too
"svelte"....cannot be easily corrected with kit parts and if corrected
will cause other problems later.
Extremely poor design of parts breakdown, crappy fit.
Exhaust openings too small by 20-25%.
Tops of stacks represented as flat plane, this is NOT correct.

Mddle superstructure-
Previous comments for RSA's, doors, splinter shields and tubs apply.
Odd circular depression molded into 40mm mounting areas.
Doors on director towers so poorly molded they might as well not be
there, replace with PE.
Crappy fit all over assembly.
If corrected stack is to be fitted you need to carve away some deck for
it to fit in place.

After superstructure-
Previous comments for RSA's, doors, splinter shields and tubs apply.
RSA's upper level "anemic", compare to all other RSA's.
Corrected stack will look odd on supplied base.
Shallow door like depressions just behind stack base should be open
archways, this would look really stupid if you open them up since the
molded a box right behind them....either the doors or the box is in the
wrong place.

Main turrets-
3 of 5 barrles on each sprue have visibly off center muzzle holes.
4 of 5 barrels on each sprue have visibly our of round muzzles.
All barrels have a soft rib machined into the mold opposite the sprue
attachment point.
Rube Goldberg barrel mounting.
Turret has nice detail.....of course you'll end up sanding a good bit of
the rivet detail off the top fixing the large seam from the
sidewalls....see comment for 01 level deck....OOPS, this one issue is
probably the single stupidest engineering error on this kit.
Turret #3 missing 40mm director tub and director.
40mm tub has pinmarks inside, also too shallow.

5" turrets-
Rube Goldberg assembly, excellent fit would make this merely finicky,
poor to fair fit makes it a major PITA.
All turrets missing a sight hood on their port side, prominent and
obvious to all but the blind.
Hatches on rear 1/3 too wide.
Barrels have odd shape, should be straight taper.

40mm's not as nice as previous efforts. No mount shields or rails, this
doesn't bother me much since I use PE for these but for some it is
considered a ripoff.

20mm's might as well be trashed. Overly simplified, barrels fatter than
40mm's in kit and about 75% the diameter of the 5" barrels. No gun
shields, this doesn't bother me much since I use PE for these but for
some it is considered a ripoff.

I haven't gotten to the cranes, catapults, masts or boats yet and I
normally replace of them with PE or brass rod for the masts so I never
really look at the kit parts. There are no sips' bells....there should
be two. Props are so-so. Anchors flat out suck. The radars supplied look
bad but then again I use PE. The kit can only be built after her June
1944 refit in Ms32/18d (the later pattern and no deck pattern) or
Ms22....unless you wan to perform varying level of surgery.

To get something built that doesn't resemble a 1960's era Revell kit you
need at the least to replace the radars, cranes, catapults, anchors,
main turrets, secondary turrets and 20mm's....you can get away with the
kit 40mm's if you use the Lion Roar PE set. Otherwise Yankee Modelworks
for mains and secondaries, L'Arsenal for secondaries, 40mm's and 20mm's.
WEM PE is the best overall quality and provides radars for her entire
service life, Lion Roar PE is a close second in quality and gives you
lots of other goodies but only for her last fit, Yankee's PE gives you
98% of what you need, it lacks SG radars and funnel catwalks, I have not
seen GMM's PE.

I can tell you WEM, Yankee and Lion Roar all worked from original source
documents because I know exactly who's hard drive they got the scans
from and he got the scans directly from the original documents at NARA
and NHC. You might wonder how I know that, simple the hard drive is mine.