This set provides three barrel types, enough for all the main guns found on Akagi. There are 6 of each type of barrel making the total barrel count at 18. An advantage this set has is that none of the guns in Hasegawa’s fine 1/350 Akagi have slide molding to hollow the barrels where all these brass barrels are hollowed.

12cm (4.7 inch) 45 caliber 10th Year type were anti-aircraft defensive weapons and were mounted on Akagi in pairs in both open and close mounted guns. These guns could rise to elevations of 75 degrees and drop down to -10 degrees.

Twelve 12cm guns are provided for all the open and close mounted batteries. Each of the batteries are in pairs regardless of the mount type and do not have any blast bags.

Open verses close mount 12cm guns. The instructions do no specify the difference between which ones are which. But the longer barrels of the 12cm gun type go on the close mounted batteries. If you want to make sure, just compare against the ones in the kit.

As for the 20cm (7.87 inch) 50I guns, they were only on Akagi and Kaga. During the war they could elevate to 25 degrees but were limited normally to 20 to 23 degrees because possible damage around the guns due to the blast shock. These are battery guns mounted out of the side of the hull and are attached to blast bags.

A small single sheet is provided. One nice touch is that the drill bit number best used to make the receiving hole for the barrel is provided. Note that two drill sizes are need here because of the different barrel types. As mentioned before, the instructions fail to distinguish between which of the 12cm barrels are used for open and close mounts. One can just compare the length of the barrel against the kit as a guide.