ModelWarships reveiw

1/400 Mexico Victory
And Minesweeper BYMS-22

Reviewed by Timothy Dike

The Mexico Victory was one of the many Victory ships built during the second world war to transport cargo for the war effort. Specifically a type VC2-S-AP3 built by the California Shipbuilding Corporation, Los Angeles CA. This ship not only survived the war, but was used by the Polish Ocean Lines, and was later laid up at Haiphong harbor during the Viet Nam war. She was finally scrapped in 1973 after many years and many miles. JCS has recreated her in 1/400 scale paper along with the Polish minesweeper BYMS-22.

The pages of the kit are illustrated below, they are printed on heavy card stock. The tanks and smaller landing craft are printed on lighter paper. All external parts are printed in color so no painting is necessary. The instructions are in Polish but are numbered and it looks like the assembly should go pretty easy.

Click to enlarge images

Please note that I have scanned these images at different scales and low resolution to prevent anyone from copying them. The quality of the print is much better than will show up on your monitor anyway.

I have heard many paper modelers say that it is best to laminate these pages onto heavier card to make them even more rigid. There is nothing to stop you from laminating it to styrene for the ultimate plastic scratchbuild.

The beauty of this type of model is that you can use a copier to reduce or enlarge the pages to produce most any scale of ship that you like. In fact I would recommend that if this is your first ship that you begin working with a copy of the ship. As a devoted 1/700 waterline modeler I find myself computing the how much I will have to reduce this kit to get to my scale!

This kit is priced at 3.95 EUR a great price for this ship. If you want to expand your 1/400 fleet this is one way to do it. Check out the e-papermodels.com website for even more ships and detailing accessories to enhance your kit.