J.C.G. Patrol Vessel PL-07 Satsuma
Reviewed February 2017
by Timothy Choi
| HISTORY | |||||||||||||||
| PL-07 Satsuma is a 1300-ton Japanese Coast Guard patrol
ship, built in 1999. Part of the PL-02 Erimo class, she is equipped with
a 35mm main gun, as well as a superfiring 20mm mount and helicopter deck.
Not much information is available on the English internet about this class
of ship, making it somewhat of a challenge to find references - still,
some decent photos of the class can be found here.
Bang Modeling is a small resin company in Japan. Their kits are not commonly found outside of Japan, so it was with some surprise that I found this kit during the Vancouver IPMS Fall Show. Thanks Kerry for putting it for sale! It is interesting to compare this with Pit-Road's plastic kit - although I don't have it, internet photos provide some points for comparison, which I'll mention below. |
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| HULL | |||||||||||||||
| The hull is moulded waterline, with very sharp portholes and cutouts
along the bow bulkhead for the various bollards on the deck. This is a
pleasant level of detail not found in the Pit-Road plastic kit.
The only fault I can see is the scratched helo deck - this will require some minor repairs. |
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| Various Resin Parts | |||||||||||||||
| The resin parts seem well-done. They're not as sharp as the latest kits using CAD+3D printed masters, but still perfectly usable. |  |
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| Metal Parts | |||||||||||||||
| White metal is used for the boat davits, the navigation lights atop the bridge, and the bonus Beechcraft 350 aircraft. There are also rods in brass and plastic for mast-top navigation radars and other details. There is a bit of flash on the edges of the aircraft, but they should be easy to remove - more discerning modelers may wish to add winglets to the wingtips. |  |
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| PHOTOETCH | |||||||||||||||
| No photoetched details are included in this kit. | |||||||||||||||
| DECALS | |||||||||||||||
Extensive decals are included for both the ship and the
Beechcraft. Apologies for the low resolution of the Beechcraft details
- technical issues arose.
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| INSTRUCTIONS | |||||||||||||||
| Instruction are a graphically simple affair on a single sheet - thankfully, there aren't too many parts and they're all fairly distinct, so the drawings should suffice. Descriptions are included for all parts. |  |
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| CONCLUSIONS | |||||||||||||||
| A decent multimedia kit, the most challenging aspects to Bang Modeling's PL-07 Satsuma (item no. BM-CG03) would be finding references for details better replicated in photoetch. If you can find it, I would recommend it over the Pit-Road version due to the better level of molded detailing, especially on the hull. | |||||||||||||||
