Reviewed by Timothy Dike
| The Yunagi was commissioned in 1925 and was a member of the Kamikaze class. With three 4.7" guns and six torpedoes these ships were not as heavily armed than most other classes of destroyer. Even so they were still active and served in some of the most contested battles in the South Pacific and beyond. The Yunagi was at Wake when that island fell to the Japanese onslaught, and later at the first battle of Savo Island escaping unharmed. She stayed in the Solomon's though out the campaign until the end and helped to sink the USS Strong DD-467. Later she was assigned to the Philippine area and it was there that she was torpedoed and sunk by the USS Picuda SS-382. | |||
| 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 quite thin too. |
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| The weapons included in this kit are from the 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. They are well registered except for the rising sun that has a little too much color bleed. |
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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 of late version
of the ship and are noted in the instructions.
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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 available today. 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 lesser known destroyers. This is kit #W34 and has a current retail of $27.50 US. |
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