Lion Roar

1/700 US Navy Depth Charge Equipment For any 1/700 USN WW2 DD or DE

Stock Number: LE700062

Reviewed By  Luke R. Bucci, IPMS# 33549

MSRP: $12.00 Thanks to Dragon Models USA for supplying the kit: www.dragonmodelsusa.com Bottom Line: Everything but the depth charges. Good for 4-8 ships. Photoetch Set Review: This set is devoted exclusively to WW2 US Navy Depth Charge gear, including good renditions of ready-use racks, throwers and their davits, which are hard to find elsewhere. It appears that most of the pieces can be used for other Allied ships carrying depth charges. I used this set on a previously built, out-of-box, old Skywave Fletcher class 1/700 destroyer model already painted. Of course I had to repaint most of the model so the photoetch pieces would match the color scheme. The brass fret contains four each of two styles of stern depth charge roller racks (long and short), six extra storage racks, 18 ready-use thrower racks (early war), 14 double-wide ready-use thrower racks (late war), 30 depth charge throwers (K guns), and 28 davits. Instructions missed showing how to fold parts 1 & 2 (one of the styles of depth charge racks), but all of these pieces need no instructions for folding. Rely on photographs from books or the web instead of the instructions for placement of depth charge items. Depth charges themselves will need to be cut from 0.7 mm plastic rod, unless you want to depict the equipment as empty. Make sure the cut depth charges fit inside the folded racks. The pieces look accurate, compared to drawings from Alan Raven's Fletcher-Class Destroyers book (see pp. 50-51, 128-130). Racks for early- and late-war configurations are on this fret. The davits are mainly for early wars amidships reload arbors (stumps) - not with the ready use racks. This is where the instructions could have been better by telling you what parts are for which time period and fit. If you have adequate reference materials, then you will not need the instructions. Use the single-wide K-gun racks for 1942-1944 fits, and the double-wide K-gun racks for 1945 and later. The longer stern racks were used in late 1944-1945 (but I used them anyway on my mid-1944 fit Fletcher).

I airbrushed the fret with ModelMaster acrylic 5-L Light Gray, but check photos of the ship you want to model since some used Haze Gray (5-H) or Navy Blue (5-N) to match the camouflage scheme. The parts were easily removed from the fret and easily handled without warping, and fit a Skywave Fletcher class model perfectly. For the stern roller racks, I used the kit pieces, and simply put the photoetch piece on top, but you also have the option of removing the kit pieces, and filling the rack with depth charges cut from 0.7 mm plastic rod. Put the rack upside down and add depth charges - much easier to fill the rack that way. If you do this, you can use the bottom piece to hold the depth charges up. For the midships K-guns and racks, I used the mid-war single-wide racks since the model was a round-bridge Fletcher class depicting 1944 fit, which used single-wide racks. I sanded down the kit pieces for the six midships depth charge throwers and their racks because the photoetch pieces do not coexist with them. Be sure to put the depth charge thrower behind the flap sticking out of the depth charge thrower ready use racks. Also, be sure to fold half of the ready-use racks left-handed and half right-handed, depending on which side of the ship they were on. Right-handed racks are on the starboard (right) side, and left-handed racks on the port (left) side. Again, this is where instructions should have been more helpful. First, glue a stack of depth charges (2X2) on the deck where the rack is supposed to be and then glue the rack over them. The thrower is then easy to locate behind the flap.

These photoetch pieces make ships in this scale (1/700) look much better than the kit pieces do, and give the depth charge areas a close-to-scale look. I found these pieces easier to work with than other photoetch depth charge sets. Summary Depending on the ship and stage of the war, your can fit out 2-4 destroyers/destroyer escorts, or 8 with fewer mountings. This is not such a good value in my opinion, because destroyers are less expensive models to begin with, and only two ships' worth of late-war, long roller racks is on this set. However, the accuracy and quality are excellent and the pieces are easy to work with. There is nothing better on the market right now. Recommended for intermediate to advanced modelers that want to super detail US Navy warships carrying depth charge equipment. References: Raven A. Fletcher-Class Destroyers. United States Naval Institute, Annapolis, MD, 1986.

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