Admirable Class Minesweeper

Black Cat Models. 1/350th Scale Cast and Print Resin.

Reviewed by Devin Poore, January 2023
The Admirable class minesweepers were designed and developed at the outset of the U.S. entry into the Second World War. Over 120 of the steel-hulled ships were built and commissioned during the war, serving in every theater. Mainly designed as minesweepers, the ships also were used in the ASW and convoy escort roles during the war, with many units serving with the U.S. military well into the 1950s. Several of the ships saw service with foreign militaries during and after the war.

One ship of the class, USS Hazard, survives as a museum at Freedom Park, in Omaha, Nebraska. Another member of the class, the ex-USS Scuffle, was transferred to the Mexican Navy in 1962, decommissioned in 2000, and sunk as an artificial reef and dive attraction off of Cozumel Island. USS Inaugural was at one time a museum ship in St. Louis, Missouri, but broke free of her moorings and sank during a flood of the Mississippi River in 1993. With the recent low-water conditions of the river, her wreck has been fully visible, leading to plans to salvage and scrap the majority of the wreck.

Note: there is very little written about the Admirable class online, and even less about the ships in my personal reference library. The above summary was cobbled together from various websites and the kit's instruction sheet.
AM-279 in 1945. Photo via The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia.

 
HULL in CAST RESIN, DECKHOUSES in PRINTED RESIN
The hull is cast resin, which appears to have been cast from a 3D printed master. There are no support marks or layer lines on the hull, which is most welcome; one of my pet peeves is 3D printed masters that aren't cleaned and sanded properly before going into the silicone. The deck is fairly smooth, as the majority of the hatches, vents, etc. are added via 3D printed parts. What detail there is, such as the gun tubs, bulwarks, and gun mountings, are cleanly cast, thin, and sharp. Chocks and fairleads are cast as part of the hull. They are cast solid, but have indentations in them; careful drilling will be required to open them up, but I'd rather this than risking their breakage during shipping.

There are faint outlines on the deck for the superstructure parts, and on the hull bottom for the prop shafts and supports. The only imperfections I spotted in the entire kit are minor divots along the center line of the bottom of the hull; these will likely never be seen, but if they're a sore spot for the builder, very light putty and sanding will take care of them. The hull has a very fine line running around the waterline, which is a nice indication of where to paint the boot topping, or where to cut the hull if one wishes to do so for a waterline presentation.

The other major components of the hull are the deck houses, which are 3D printed. The main structures are cleanly printed, with only a slight hint of one layer line on the bridge/deck house assembly, that only shows up under magnification, so it'll likely disappear under primer and paint. Details such as portholes and their associated covers, hatches, etc. are printed as part of the deck houses and are very sharp. The wind deflector on the bridge is also included as part of the print; an impressively fine bit of detail. The stack is hollow, with the steam release (at least that's what I think it is) depicted inside the housing.

The full size Admirable class measured at 184' 6" overall, according to multiple sources. The kit hull measures at around 6.25", which is close enough for me. 
The kit as it looks upon opening the box.

DETAIL COMPONENTS
The majority of the kit's parts are 3D printed in resin. As is typical with Black Cat Models, the print rafts are double-sided taped inside the two plastic clamshell boxes for protection. This makes for an extremely safe packaging option, which (broken record time) I wish other manufacturers would look into using for shipping their own products.

The first blister pack contains the larger pieces, such as the ship's boats (two styles included, use photo references to decide which to use for a specific ship), life rafts, anchors, boat davits, paravanes, dual 40mm gun mounts, and hedge hog launchers, along with other small parts. Two items that really stand out are the floater net baskets, complete with the floats printed as part of the basket assembly, and the stern depth charge racks, with the depth charges included; I would have killed for such a part while building the old school resin destroyer kits 10+ years ago.

The second blister pack contains the 20mm gun mounts (with a couple of spares), flag bags, ammo lockers, hand wheels, bitts, crow's nest, vents, and everything else needed to give a nice bit of clutter to a ship's deck. I didn't count every piece, but there's a lot of stuff here, and the instructions state that there are duplicates of many pieces, which will make a nice addition to the parts stash, or replacements if any of the fine bits are broken during assembly.
BRASS and DECALS
Photo-etched brass supplies the lifelines, rails, ladders, and ammo racks for inside the fantail 40mm tubs. There's also a brass windscreen, should the 3D printed one be damaged during assembly. The brass is thin, only .007" thick (.15 mm) but it's quite rigid.

A small bag of turned brass with the Master logo includes multiple pieces of turned brass and wire, mostly to assemble the mast and flagstaffs. There are a lot of these parts that need to be assembled to build the mast assembly, which will require extra patience and care.

Two small sheets of numbers are included, one in white, the other in black. There are no ship name decals included, nor any flags. 
INSTRUCTIONS
The instructions are the typical Black Cat: full-color, booklet style, of 20 pages. A short history of the class and a parts inventory make up the first few pages of the booklet, which is followed by step-by-step illustrations of assembly. There are a couple of call-outs in the instructions for differences in ships in the class. For example, step 9 mentions different radars that could be mounted. As with most details in this kit, refer to photo references, as it really is a generic model of the class, not a specific ship. Beyond that, the instructions are easily readable and color-coded to the material of the part (resin, printed, brass). The last two pages have two perspective renderings of the ship, and a five-view plan and profile. One should be able to glean enough information from the profiles to correctly rig the ship. No paint brands are mentioned in the color call outs, but the US Navy paint numbers are given.
CONCLUSIONS
Another very impressive offering from Black Cat Models. As I've stated previously, I find this combination of cast resin hull and 3D printed details the perfect medium for these small ships. It's doubly-welcome here because the quality of the resin casting of the hull is on-par with the quality of the printed parts. Almost everything needed to build the model is included in the box, except for a base and mounts, but most kits don't include those. The only thing that I can think which will definitely need to be supplied by the modeler is the chain for the anchors. I also would like to see deck masks included in these kits; something I've mentioned to Black Cat Models in the past (so I'll bring it up again as a reminder). 

Highly recommended. Thank you to Black Cat Models for the review sample. You can purchase this kit and their other offerings directly from their website, from Freetime Hobbies, and other hobby outlets.

 

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