Portland Class Heavy Cruiser
| The Matchbox kit is still available though it is over 20 years old. At the time of it's release it filled an important void in the 1/700 scale Waterline American ship fleet. Though the kit is fairly accurate as far as overall dimensions and shape it suffers from a lack of detail, and the molding is rather thick. I originally built this kit before the release of the Tamiya kit, and at the time it didn't compare too well with the other kits on the market at the time. It is however relatively inexpensive and might be a good kit to introduce a first time modeler to. |  |
| I found that the thickness of the splinter' shields, scaling out at over 30" wide, to be very distracting. I would recommend replacing them with strip styrene or brass sheet. Even the walls on the superstructure are a little too thick for my taste. The hull is composed of two sides that are somewhat tricky to fit up properly. A hull bottom and two part deck separated at the hull break finish the assembly. You might want to remove the molded on crates on the stern, unless your ship is in port they shouldn't be there.. |  |
| The weapons and accessories are only barely recognizable, being like the other parts on the thick side. Corsair Armada makes 5"-25 Cal. gun mounts that could be used to make this ship look a little better. Skywave weapons sets will provide you with 20 mm and 40 mm mounts that are much better scaled. |  |
| The instructions are pretty well done and do a good job of illustration the assembly process. Combined with the simplicity of this kit, and this kit can probably be built out of the box in an evening, unless you decide to start replacing parts. |  |
| In conclusion, this would make a great kit to give to a young modeler to build their first ship, or even to practice your photo etch techniques on. It is relatively inexpensive and I have seen this kit spruced up by a few modelers who have replaced some of the kit parts and added photo etch. But the amount of work it needs to bring it up to par, make the Tamiya Indianapolis kit a better choice. |  |
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