Reviewed by Timothy Dike
| One of the casualties of the Washington Naval Treaty that limited warship production was the G-3 British Battlecruiser. A ship designed to match the US Lexington and the Japanese Amagi Class Battlecruisers, this would be one of the largest warships constructed. If they had been completed they would have measured 862' long by 106' wide and displaced 48,400 tons making them comparable in size to the USS Lexington that was built on the competing battlescruiser hull. Much of the design work went into the later HMS Rodney and HMS Nelson that were 35,000 baby versions of this ship. | |||||
| Mike Bartel of Imperial Hobby Productions has been producing resin kits since the early days of resin ships. The subjects vary from the traditional to the never built ships like this one. The quality of these kits has steadily improved over the years, and this one is one of the best cast I have of those I have seen. This kit is a considered a craftsman kit as it requires more than just assembling parts. A Tamiya Rodney or Nelson kit is required for some of the parts needed to complete this ship. | Click images
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The hull is well is nicely detailed and clean of any casting
defects. Surface detailing is well done and the deck planking is very fine.
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One thing I really like is the lack of molded
on anchor chains. Only the base is cast on, allowing the modeler to add
real chain for a more realistic effect. While I have seen some nicely cast
anchor chain molded onto some kits, it is still hard to beat the effect
of real chain.
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| The main guns are well cast requiring only a light cleanup to remove the flash. The walkways on the turret top are cast on, and are an improvement over those in the HMS Rodney and HMS Nelson kits. The gun barrels from the Tamiya kit are used with these turrets. An extra pair of 6" twin mounts are provided as the Tamiya BB's only have 6 pair and 8 are required. I wish that IHP would have included all eight as these white metal castings are much sharper than the plastic ones in the Tamiya kits. |  |
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| Superstructure parts and funnels are well cast and require a minimum of cleanup. Other than drilling out the funnels and replacing the funnels grills there is little the modeler will have to do to these parts. |  |
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The instructions are pretty basic and could use a few detail views. Since this ship was never competed it is hard to say what the actual appearance would have been and the modeler can take some creative license and build it to typical Royal Navy standards. |
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The sheer size of this ship is best illustrated by comparing
it to the HMS Rodney Battleship a baby version of what this ship was to
be.
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| Conclusions:
This is not a kit for beginners, it requires some prior experience with scratch building or kit bashing. But it is a one of a kind ship that will be a real attention getter. At a list price of $130.00 it is pretty pricey, but it is truly a one of a kind subject sure to draw a crowd at any model show. IHP already has a IJN Project. 13-16 battleship design, and will be releasing a Lexington Class Battlecruiser so you can model what would have been had the Washington Treaty not interrupted the arms race of the post WW1 years. Thanks to Imperial Hobby Productions for the review sample check their website for a complete list of Ship kits in metal and resin. |
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