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1/350 USN "K-Gun" and reloads (early style)
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September 2023 |
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| Kraken Hobbies has sent along another
one of their products for review. The set is 1/350 USN "K-Gun"
and reloads (early style). The set contains six K-guns and 12
reloads.
According to the USS Slater website: The MK6 depth charge projector was developed to widen the the area covered by the attack by increasing the number of depth charges that could be fired simultaneously. The use of rear drop racks was a useful strategy in WWI, but during WWII a submarine could evade this if it had already dived some time before. A more widespread pattern was needed to catch such a target. The obvious solution to this problem was throwing the depth charges far to the side, so as to create a sort of depth charge carpet. During the latter part of WWI, the Y-gun was created for this purpose. This was a projector which fired two depth charges simultaneously off the port and starboard sides if the ship. These Y-guns were located on the centerline of a ship and having two barrels, forming a Y. A depth charge was set on each barrel to be fired off in support of the other charges several hundred feet outboard. While this was an effective addition to the anti-submarine warfare forces, its major drawback was that it had to be mounted on the centerline where little room is typically available. A single barrel version of the Y-gun, the K-gun, was developed which could be mounted on either side of the main deck which fired one depth charge outboard. Four K-guns lined either side of the main decks of destroyer escorts. For more on K-guns and depth charges, visit the USS Slater website here, or Wikipedia, here. |
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Click to enlarge images |
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| K-GUN DEPTH CHARGE PROJECTOR | ||||
| There are two print rafts inside the
clamshell container. One contains the K-Guns, the other the reloads.
There are six K-gun projectors on this print raft. The print detail is nice. I can't notice any visible print lines with the Mk1 eyeball. |
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| RELOADS | ||||
| The second print raft contains 12 reloads. Same comments as above to the quality. | ||||
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| CONCLUSIONS | ||||
| The Kraken
website notes that these K-Guns and reloads were "Found on all classes
of USN Destroyer starting in 1941 and the Atlanta class Light Cruisers
during their service at Guadalcanal", so there is a wide variety of
model ships these can be used on. As was writing the review, my only
nit-pick was going to be that there were only 12 reloads included in the
set. That's not enough reloads to trick out a Benson/Gleaves or Fletcher
class DD. However, when I went to their website, I see Kraken has
you covered with two options - one is this early set, with 12 reloads.
The other option is a "late/Atlanta class" set, with 24 reloads.
I think these are a really useful upgrade set - especially for those of
us who have un-built resin DDs in the stash. Not only will these
parts will be an improvement over the injection molded versions, they will
be a huge leap in quality over the old white metal versions. Recommended!
This is Kraken Hobbies 1/350 USN "K-Gun" and reloads (early style). It retails for $5.99 USD (the late set is just $2.00 more), and is available directly from Kraken Hobbies, who I'd like to thank for this review sample. |
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