Reviewed by Timothy Dike |
| The Alaska class were basically upgunned
heavy cruisers. Weighing in at 27,000 tons these ships were closer in size
to the fast battleships. But they lacked the armor protection and their
main gun armament was only nine 12" 50 cal guns in three triple turrets.
These ships were intended to provide fast escorts for carrier battlegroups
and to be able to fend off the biggest heavy cruisers of the time. While
they never got to go head to head with any enemy ships, they shot down
their fair share of enemy planes. The Guam spent most of her career as
part of the anti aricraft screen of carriers such as the Enterprise and
even the ill fated Intrepid. Her massive anti aircraft battery helped keep
many of the determained kamakazes from reaching their intended targets.
She served with the carriers from the mid Pacific to the Philippines and
operated as far away as the East China Sea.
As formidable as they looked this class of cruiser was not deemed
successful and only two were ever completed. There was a greater need for
smaller escorts and landing craft for the invasion of Germany and
Japan. So only Alaska and Guam were ever completed. After the war consideration
was given to converting these ships to missile ships or command ships,
but those plans were ultimately scrapped and finally in 1959 the Alaska
was sold off for scrap.
Guam received two battle stars for World War II service.
This kit from MidShip models is the twin sister to the Alaska
kit. As far as I can tell the two kits are identical except for the
instructions.
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| HULL |
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| The hull is cast in the waterline style with pretty good
detail overall. The deck has lots of surface detail with nice planking.
The anchor ways are cast without any chain, a nice touch. I would suggest
adding real chain here as it looks much better than cast on chain. Splinter
shields and gun tubs are well cast and there are plenty of bits along the
deck edge. |
click images
to enlarge
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| SUPERSTRUCTURE |
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| The superstructure parts include several deck levels and a funnel.
Some of these parts appear to be newly designed, but I don't have an original
issue of the old Classic Warships kit to compare it to. The shapes look
good, but there is a lack of any surface details. The modeler may want
to get a good set of PE doors and hatches to give the walls some surface
detailing. The top of the funnel is a little lacking in detail too, but
there is some nice external piping. Some of these short comings are made
up for by the details included in the photo etch set described below. So
most of these parts will be greatly enhanced when platforms and fittings
are attached. |
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| MAIN GUNS |
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| The triple gun turrets look pretty good with cast on sighting hoods
and turret top periscopes. I like the way they are cast with the back of
the turret being the connection point to the resin sprue. This will allow
you to clean them up without losing the details on the other sides. Barrels
are not bad for resin, but advanced modelers will probably want to cut
off the bast bags and add brass barrels. |
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| SECONDARY GUNS |
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| The 5" twin mounts are nice too. They are cast on a resin wafer and
have sighting hoods and hatches cast on the rear. Gun barrels are not bad
for resin. |
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| GUN TUBS |
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| A variety of gun tubs are included in various styles for the light
anti aircraft guns. These are all cast on a resin wafer. Parts such as
the 40 mm gun tubs have PE ammo racks that fit inside and will look much
better when completed. |
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| WEAPONS SPRUE X7 |
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| This kit features seven of the MidShip standard weapons sprues to supply
the small weapons and fittings. The rafts are molded in two styles and
are both nicely done. This will supply the small weapons as
well as give you a bunch of extra spare parts you can use for other projects. |
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| METAL PARTS |
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| The king posts for the cranes and main and secondary gun
directors are cast in white metal. A SeaHawk floatplane is also included
to mount on the catapults. Do yourself a favor and use the included photo
etch parts for main gun director radar assembly. It will greatly improve
the looks of the part. |
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| PHOTO ETCH |
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| A relief photo etch fret is supplied to add the fine details to this
kit. This fret based on the 1/350
Yankee Modelworks kit really makes this kit. It includes some really
nice crane and catapults. There are also a variety of platforms some
an open mesh flooring. If you don't want to use the plastic 20 mm gun mounts
then there are photo etch replacements provided on the fret. 40mm gun shields
and many other details. The inclusion of nicely done cable reels and floater
net baskets will help give the superstructure more detail. The radar support
brackets for the funnel will also dress that part up quite a bit. |
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| DECALS |
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| The decal sheet is a real treat and includes flags and pennants as
well as both prewar and early and late war hull numbers. These are printed
by Microscale and are typical of the high quality decals they usually produce.
They are nicely registered and sharp. |
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| INSTRUCTIONS |
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| The instructions are twelve pages with a bill of materials,
subassembly views and exploded views. These are an improvement over past
instructions. The labeled plan and elevation views with the subassembly
views help illustrate where the parts go.
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| CONCLUSIONS |
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This kit was very nice when first released. It's a little dated now
but with new photo etch, decals and upgraded parts it has more potential.
The hull is pretty nicely done, but the superstructure parts are a little
plain. However the really nice photo etch set takes care of a lot of those
issues and includes many fine parts not normally seen in a resin kit. I
am glad that
Midship
continues to upgrade these old Classic Warships kits. This one has a list
price is $119 US. These kits are available now at Pacific
Front and Freetime
Hobbies. Currently Freetime lists this kit for $89 making it a pretty
good deal for this ship. |
