| USS Wasp History: |
USS Wasp (CV-7) was a United States Navy aircraft carrier
commissioned in 1940 and lost in action in 1942. She was the eighth ship
named USS Wasp, and the sole ship of a class built to use up the remaining
tonnage allowed to the U.S. for aircraft carriers under Washington Naval
Treaty. After the construction of the carriers Yorktown and Enterprise,
the U.S. was still permitted 15,000 long tons (15,000 t) to build a carrier.
As a reduced-size version of the Yorktown-class aircraft carrier hull,
Wasp was more vulnerable than other United States aircraft carriers available
at the opening of hostilities. Wasp was launched with almost no armor,
modest speed and, more significantly, no protection from torpedoes. Absence
of side protection of the boilers and internal aviation fuel stores "doomed
her to a blazing demise". These were inherent design flaws that were recognized
when constructed but could not be remedied within the allowed tonnage.
These flaws, combined with a relative lack of damage control experience
in the early days of the war, were to prove fatal.
Wasp was initially employed in the Atlantic campaign where Axis naval
forces were perceived as less capable of inflicting decisive damage. After
supporting the occupation of Iceland in 1941, Wasp joined the British Home
Fleet in April 1942 and twice ferried British fighter aircraft to Malta.
Wasp was then transferred to the Pacific in June 1942 to replace losses
at the battles of Coral Sea and Midway. After supporting the invasion of
Guadalcanal, Wasp was sunk by the Japanese submarine I-19 on 15 September
1942.
-History from Wikipedia. |
| USS Wasp the kit: |
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| Aoshima has produced several versions of the USS Wasp:
Atlantic service with the British fleet, right after she arrived in the
Pacific, and at her sinking with the I-19 submarine. This last version
is the one being reviewed here. Searching online it looks like the kits
are all basically the same, except the last two have different aircraft,
and the most current includes the I-19.
The kit is well packaged and everything was still on the sprues. The
detail of the hull and flight deck are pretty nice for this scale, ships
boats and rafts are decent, and the weapons/gun directors are good likeness,
but could benefit from being replaced with aftermarket parts. |
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| HULL SPRUE A |
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| Sprue A is the hull. The detailing on the hull is pretty
good, eyebrows over the portholes and the degaussing cable is cast into
the hull. The hangar deck doors are all molded into the closed position,
except for the forward most ones. The sections on the roll up doors are
over scale, but not too terribly to detract from the overall model. The
molding is nice and crisp. I have read that the hull (the whole kit actually)
is slightly under scale, but since I do not have plans handy I cannot give
exact measurements. |
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enlarge image |
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| DECK SPRUE B |
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| Sprue B is the flight deck and some of the superstructure/island structures.
The flight deck is nicely cast as one piece, no deck seams to worry about
here. The detailing on the flight deck is crisp and very nice, and not
too out of scale. This sprue includes the elevators and “pits” for them,
this is the majority of the hangar deck detail. The other pieces are nicely
cast and decently detailed. The splinter shields are obviously out of scale
and this is a problem throughout the kit. |
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| BOTTOM SPRUE C |
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| Sprue C contains the waterline plate, the forecastle, flight deck bracing,
and the other detailing for the hangar deck. The forecastle comes with
the anchor chains and capstands molded into the deck, at this scale and
since they’ll be under the flight deck I felt this was completely acceptable. |
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| SPRUE D |
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| Sprue D contains the main catwalks/weapons galleries, the aft deck,
and the island plus most of the island detailing. The catwalks have lines
molded to the bottom to represent the bracing that holds the catwalks.
The island is excellently detailed and includes a cast on Pri-Fly. The
funnel topper is molded closed. |
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| SPRUE E |
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| Sprue E contains the weapons, ships boats, and life rafts. The boats
and life rafts are pretty decent, as mentioned before. The weapons and
directors capture the shapes and ideas of the prototypes, but lack detail
and the smaller weapons are over scale. To build the kit out of the box
the included weapons are good, but to really make the ship pop replacing
the weapons would be an excellent idea. |
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| SPRUE F |
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| Sprue F contains the rest of the catwalks and the 5” weapon galleries.
The detailing is good, but like the others the splinter shielding is out
of scale. |
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| AIRCRAFT I SPRUE |
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| This sprue contains TBF/M Avengers and F4F Wildcats. All the Avengers
are molded with the wings down, but you get options for folded wings with
the Wildcats. The molding is crisp, but no propellers are provided and
the wheels are just nubs on the bottom of the aircraft. I also noticed
the bottoms had some serious ejector marks, but these shouldn’t be noticeable
once the planes are on the deck. |
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| AIRCRAFT L SPRUES |
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| These sprues contain the SBD Dauntless. Sadly Aoshima must not have
done much research on the Dauntless because they molded the plans with
the wingtips not attached, like they fold up ala the Devastator or Corsair.
Hopefully this won’t make it too difficult to model the aircraft. |
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| BONUS SUBMARINE |
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| As mentioned at the beginning of the review, this version includes
the I-19 submarine. The molding is crisp and looks well detailed. |
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| You get an upper and lower hull, so modeling the submarine full hull
or waterline is no problem. The deck planking is slightly over scale, but
still looks good. |
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| DECALS |
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| The decals are nicely printed and provide markings for the aircraft
in the way of just the stars and roundels. Deck markings are included for
the Wasp herself and are a nice touch saving you the trouble of masking
and trying to get straight lines. Flag decals are included for both the
Wasp and I-19 and they look good as well. |
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| STAND & WEIGHT |
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| A small stand is included for the I-19 if you wish to depict the submarine
full hulled. It is very basic, but there is no real need for a fancy stand
for the small submarine. |
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| INSTRUCTIONS |
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| The instructions are clear and easy to understand, Aoshima
didn't try to clutter them up with too many sub-steps to each assembly
step. In my example the actual assembly steps were all only in Japanese,
which isn't really a problem since the pictures are good enough to build
the ship. The painting guide is a good depiction of the ship, but as with
any build you will want to check your references to make sure the patterns
are 100% correct.
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| CONCLUSION |
|
 All
in all this is a great kit, especially since it is the only available plastic
injection kit of the USS Wasp. It should be a fairly straightforward build
and an excellent addition to any collection. With the addition of Aoshima’s
separate photo etch set and some aftermarket weapons/directors you could
build a very nice representation of the USS Wasp. Aoshima is bringing us
many subjects that have yet to be modeled in plastic, and for that I am
grateful. Hopefully newer kits will not be subject to scale issues and
Aoshima will bring us many more less known subjects.
Thanks to Aoshima
for the review sample. Check out their website for all their latest water
line ships available now at your favorite hobby shop or online store. |
