Gold Medal Models

1/400 USS Ward/Four Piper Fittings Set For the for Mirage's Wickes Class of 4-piper destroyers

Stock Number: 400-10

Reviewed By  Charles Landrum, IPMS# 26328

MSRP: $14.00 Available directly from Gold Medal Models or through retail outlets:    Gold Medal Models, 1412 Fisherman Bay Road, Lopez, WA 98261          website: www.goldmm.com The 1000 ton four piper destroyers were the mainstay of the US Navy destroyer force from the final year of WWI to the opening days of WWII. Designed for quick construction, the Wickes Class (including variants) were fast, heavily armed, and numerous and served far longer than designed. Over the life of the classes forced into many roles for which they were not designed for: fast transport, air operations and the banana trade. Obsolete by the early 1930s, the majority had been laid-up only to be remobilized for the US Navy and Great Britain as both nations faced imminent danger in the Atlantic due to U-boats. In fact, the first US casualties of the war were the result of the torpedoing of USS Reuben James during Neutrality Patrol in the North Atlantic in 1941. Later that year USS Ward would get the upper hand on a midget sub sneaking into Pearl Harbor and claim first blood in the Pacific. These events followed a cataclysmic event twenty years earlier, when the rocks of Point Honda, California claimed seven ships of the class and the lives of scores of sailors due to poor navigation in poor weather at excessive speed. A surprise release from Gold Medal Models is a compact PE fitting set for Mirage's Wickes Class of 4-piper destroyers. Mirage's 4-pipers were in the works for a long time, but did not disappoint when they came out. They are well modeled and accurate, but there is a limitation to the injection molding process, especially with a vessel this diminutive. View the kit at: http://www.epmodels.co.uk/shipkits/mirage_wickes1.html This PE set will set will replace or upgrade a lot of details to the plastic. This 3.5 x 5 inch double relief-etched fret carries all of the details required to build a US Wickes Class Destroyer in the timeframe of the early 1920s until the early stages of WWII. The ships as commissioned had a slightly different configuration but were modernized immediately following the war based on operational lessons. Once WWII started many of the ships were reconfigured and/or rearmed with a wide variety of newer systems and the ships lost their distinctive appearance. Gold Medal provides the following details in this compact fret: · Life rails in pre-measured sections including optional section with windscreens · Lattice searchlight tower · Inclined and vertical ladders · Watertight doors, left and right handed and open doors included · Replacement yardarms with rigging holes etched in. Included are doubler plates for greater thickness and strength. · Life raft netting and paddles · Direction finding antennas · 4inch gun shield for mount 41 · Two styles of depth charge racks · Details for 20mm guns · Cable reels · Boat details and davit detail - man ropes · Two styles of replacement bridge window frames · Two ship's wheels · Eyebolts for rigging · Funnel cap grilles · Anchor chain · Life rings · A figure of LCDR William W. Outerbridge, CO of USS Ward DD-139 It is a lot of detail squeezed onto such a small fret. The detail is as one would expect from Gold Medal - crisply executed in an easy to use lay out. What I like about this set are the various styles of fittings that characterize the class, the bridge windows being particularly welcomed. The Details I would have like to have seen added: · Propeller guards - while the kit ones are petite, some of the 4-pipers had ones made from angle iron with gusset plates · Replacement davits - the ones carried on these ships into the 1940 were perforated with lightening holes. Gold Medal provides them for the Revell 1/240 kit, and they would be even nicer in this scale. Still it is a pretty complete set at an affordable price. Imagine the diorama possibilities! Highly recommended. I would like to thank Loren Perry for this review sample.

Information, images, and all other items placed electronically on this site are the intellectual property of IPMS/USA ®.