Reviewed by Timothy Dike
| The HMS Repulse was an WW I design that was modernised between the wars. She served in the second world war in the Pacific Theater being sent with the HMS Prince of Wales to stop the advancing Japanese forces from over taking the British interests in the South East Pacific | |||||||||
| FROG is old English company that started producing model kits back in 1932. They stopped producingkits for a while in the 80s, and restarted in the mid 1990s. They have returned with a reissue of one of the best 1/600 scale kits ever produced. This kit was previously issued by Airfix and later MPC, the box and instructions still bear their Airfix heritage. | |||||||||
| The kit consists of three sprues of parts with a split
hull. Molding is pretty good, and Royal Navy fans will tell you this is
a pretty accurate kit. The deck is nicely done with a fair amount of surface
detailing present. Superstructure parts look good and the weapons are well
done. The aircraft cranes are pretty good, but will look much better if
they are replaced by photo etch.
The Walrus Seaplane included with the kit looks accurate and too-scale. |
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| The kit builds up into a nice model and has a lot of potential as can be seen by Martin Quinn's build found in the Model Ship Gallery. |  |
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Instructions are eight pages with detailed sub assembly
drawings clearly showing all phases of construction. The final page has
a camouflage design view showing her markings at the time of her lose.
This is probably the best detailed of the Airfix kits and would stand up well against any modern Japanese injection moulded opponent. The decks are cambered and the hose reels have the hoses engraved on them. The hull is beautifully moulded with the armour plate sharply defined and in scale thickness. Boats are beautifully detailed as are the AA guns and the crane engines (a first!). My MPC re-issue is beautifully crisp though all the 15" turrets have sinkmarks (easy to fix) and it really does look like a Tamiya kit! I havn't built mine yet but a friend has and it looks great. He did say there were some fit problems around the aft superstructure but this is a small niggle. Both Repulse and Hood visited Australia in the 1920s and I will one day finish both these kits in their 1920s configuration. |
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Conclusions:
This is an all-plastic kit, and is a re-issue of the Airfix HMS Repulse. The estimated price is GB£17 or US$27.90. This kit is available immediately from Hobby Bounties Ltd or through Hobby Bounties Singapore at fax: +65-6344 1782. Please note that postage is estimated at GB£8 or US$13 worldwide. Thanks to Frog Models for the review sample. FROG Models
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