IJN Destroyer Yukikaze
Reviewed by Timothy Dike
| The Yukikaze was considered one of the luckiest Imperial Japanese Navy ships of the war. A member of the Kagero class she was among the best destroyers built. Completed in 1940 this destroyer was active in all area's of the Pacific. She participated in the battles for Guadalcanal including the November 13th battle emerging unscathed. She also fought in the battles of Leyte and survived the war, the only member of her class to accomplish this. After the war Yukikaze was transferred to China as part of the reparations. | |||
| The hull is well detailed with raised tread plate and lots of sharp well defined features. The superstructure parts have some nice hatch detailing so there is no need to replace them with photo etch. The masts are finely molded for this scale. The forward superstructure is quite nice consisting of three separate wall for the lower portion and a top bridge platform split at the window line making it easier to open those windows. |
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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. Extra markings are included for a "Demobilization ship". |
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The instructions are good, consisting of a little history
and several exploded views showing the various subassemblies. It is straight
forward and easy to follow. Parts are included for an early or late version
of the ship but are not noted in the instructions so if you plan an early
war version of this ship you will have to do a little research or get the
Pit-Road
Kagero kit #24 which is an early war version
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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 one of the best Japanese waterline ship kits available today. It is highly detailed and is a vast improvement over the other waterline destroyer kits originally produced in this scale. It can be built out of the box with good results. But add a some PE rails and rigging and you have a real nice representation of one of Japan's best class of destroyers. This is kit #W24 and has a current retail of $27.50 US. |
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