IJN Destroyer Hatsuzakura
Reviewed by Timothy Dike
| Hatsuzakura, was a 1580-ton Tachibana class destroyer, one of the last ones built beforee the war ended. She was completed in May 45 in Yokosuka, and servered the last few months of the war defending the home waters. After the war she helped bring Japanese soldiers home. In 1947 she was turned over to the Soviet Navy as a war prize and served as an auxilary ship as TSL-24 until the mid 60's. | |||
| The hull is well detailed with raised tread plate and lots of well defined features. The masts are finely molded for this scale. The superstructure has some nice hatch detailing as well as plumbing and ladders molded on. |
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| The weapons included in this kit are from the standard
Skywave IJN weapons set that I usually recommend for replacing on other
kits. So you already have the best weapons available on the market. The
main guns are molded with a separate shield, a vast improvement over other
kits.
The decal sheet is pretty well done, with numbers to build several ships in this class. There are stripes and ships names as well as a couple of battle flags. |
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The instructions are good, consisting of a little history
and several exploded views showing the various subassemblies.
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| Typical of the water line series of kits this one has a painting guide on the back of the box with color numbers for the Pitroad and Guze Sangyo line of paints. The art work is pretty detailed and includes rigging. |  |
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Conclusions:
This kit is W78 with a list price of ¥1,600 or just under $15.00 US. A good price for a 700 scale waterline destroyer. |
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