Reviewed by Timothy Dike
September 2013 |
| Lucky Lou the nick name lovingly given
to the USS St. Louis, the name ship of an improved version of the Brooklyn
Class light cruiser. The St. Louis and the Helena were the only two ships
in this sub class. They differed from the Brooklyn's in that they had a
much more compact superstructure and the secondary armament was in four
twin 5" gun turrets. With their unusual arrangement of five triple 6" main
guns these cruisers represented a unique silhouette among the US fleet.
The St. Louis was at Pearl Harbor on December 7th and survived not only
the air raid but also a midget sub attack when she got underway and put
to sea. She was all over the South Pacific and worked her way to the Japanese
home islands and survived the war earning 11 battle stars. Early in the
1950's, she was transferred to Brazil. and renamed Tamandare serving
until 1976 when she was sold for scrap. Her luck ran out while under tow
off South Africa in 1980 when she foundered and sank.
Blue Ridge Models calls this their Heritage Series as it's based on
the Classic Warships kit. That kit
was state of the art when first released in the late 90's. While it's been
around for a few year, it really just needed some upgrading. This new kit
now has PE, CNC Barrels, and a Wood Deck. Don't be confused by the box
art the kit represents her after her June 1942 Mare Island refit. So you
can model her in her early Guadalcanal fit.
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| HULL |
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| The hull is cast in the waterline style. Detail is very
good with a nicely planked deck and lots of surface detail. There is some
flash along the waterline, but that shouldn't be a problem to clean up.
I'm not a big fan of molded on anchor chain, but this looks pretty good.
My sample had a bit of flash on the hanger door track, but nothing that
will be a chore to fix. The hull scales out very close to actual dimension
and has the correct shape. There is some flash along the waterline, but
that's easy to deal with. |
click images
to enlarge
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| SUPERSTRUCTURE |
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| The superstructure parts are cast on a thin wafer. Detail is very good
and the forward parts will be easy to locate as the tall director mount
is designed to pass through the two upper level. This will help perfectly
align them. It looks like the only cleanup here will be flat sanding the
parts to free them from the wafer. The funnels look pretty good and have
cast on piping. |
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| WEAPONS |
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| These turrets are new resin versions with separate gun barrels. The
sighting hoods are cast on so you wont have to fight with that. The shape
looks pretty good and closely matches the plans I have of various Brooklyn
class ships. The 5" gun mounts need some work. They appear to be single
purpose mounts and don't have enough radius on the sides. You can round
the sides a little with a file or sanding stick. To convert this gun to
dual purpose you will need to enlarge the gun slots from the front face
to the edge of the roof. |
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| Save the resin main gun barrels for the blast bags.
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| DIRECTORS, BOATS AND CRANE |
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| The directors are nice and look like their 1:1 counterparts.
The boat crane base looks good and the boats and rafts are well cast too. |
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| WOOD DECK |
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| This kit features a precut blue stained simulated wood deck. It is
laser etched with realistic wood planking and is adhesive backed. |
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| FLOAT PLANES |
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| The SOC float plane are from Trumpeter and are molded in clear plastic. |
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| PHOTO ETCH |
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| A photo etch fret supplies all the railings, searchlight platforms,
and cranes. This is essentially a scaled down version of the 1/350 Yankee
Modelworks (ex-Classic Warships) Brooklyn class photo etch and it is a
great bonus for this kit. It includes nice searchlight towers, boat and
aircraft cranes, catapults. Even some nice sky lookouts that you don't
normally see in 700 scale. The railings include bow rails that angle upwards |
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| MAIN GUN BARRELS |
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| CNC turned brass gun barrels are provided for the 6"47
cal gun mounts. These include a mounting pin and drilled out ends. There
are 15 in this kit.
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| SECONDARY GUN BARRELS |
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| 5" 38 cal. secondary gun barrels are also provided to replace
those thick plastic ones. 8 are included in this kit.
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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 five pages with a bill of materials,
subassembly views and exploded views. Pretty good overall, but a nice plan
and profile would have been a nice touch.
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| CONCLUSIONS |
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I have the original Classic Warships kit, and the Midship
follow-up, and this one is an upgrade of both of those kits.
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This is kit # BM70033 available only from Freetime
Hobbies for $65.00. Another example of a great value, this kit retailed
for $60 without the PE, Brass Barrels and Wood Deck many years ago. It's
still the best St. Louis class CL on the market. |
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