Lion Roar

Imperial Japanese Navy Armored Rails & Caisson For 1/700 late WW2 Japanese warships

Stock Number: LE700067

Reviewed By  Luke Bucci, IPMS# 33549

MSRP: $12.00 Available from: Dragon USA, (www.dragonmodelsusa.com) Bottom Line: This set is just right for accurizing the additional anti-aircraft guns on late-war Japanese warships. If you can work with very tiny pieces, you will want to re-do your entire IJN fleet. PHOTOETCH SET REVIEW: Lion Roar has a large line of 1/700 photoetch accessories for United States, Japanese and German WW2 navies. Instead of producing a photoetch set for a single ship that includes the gamut of pieces, Lion Roar usually supplies fittings generic to all ships or a class of ships. This set is devoted exclusively to the splinter shields (which they call armored rails) fitted to decks of Japanese warships in late WW2 for additional light anti-aircraft guns, usually single 25mm or 13mm mounts. The photoetch set is made from thin stainless steel, and features 3-D details on the caissons (ammo boxes). There are 6 different types of pieces: 28 shields for two single 25mm AA guns 16 shields for 4 single 25mm AA guns 9 shields for 5 single 25mm AA guns 198 supports to hold up the shields 24 vertical ammo boxes 48 smaller flat ammo boxes The set comes with an instruction sheet on how to fold the caissons and how the supports attach to the splinter shields. There are seams on the insides of the shields that the supports fit into. The ammo boxes are easily removed without those annoying metal burrs and fold nicely, although the taller vertical boxes will need some glue to keep them in the proper shape. The vertical boxes are meant to be used in AA gun tubs, with the flat side glued to the shield. The smaller flat ammo boxes are shown in the instructions mounted on the deck against the armored rail in front of each single 25mm gun. However, in reality, the illustration in the instructions is wrong - the actual assembled ammo boxes are twice the size of those pictured. The supports for the shields are extremely tiny, and very difficult to handle. It is best to apply a tiny amount of glue to the seam on the shields positioned face-down and then apply the supports. When dry, the entire shield can be glued to the deck. Very fine, needle-point tweezers were too big to properly handle the tiny supports, so great patience is needed to manipulate them. Be careful how you breathe too, as the tiny supports go flying into oblivion in any air motion. Count on 10-20% attrition (they tend to disappear easily). Also, I suspect that painting the supports will fill in their delicate holes. I think Lion Roar is flirting with the limits of practicality in 1/700 scale details. Previously I had refitted dozens of IJN destroyers with splinter shields and ammo boxes made from thin plastic strip, brass strips or even foil from wine bottles. They looked fine, but these armored rails are even better. The clincher is those tiny supports that are very close to scale. Plus, your fleet will have uniform shields and ammo boxes. I was in the middle of refitting a Shimakaze destroyer that was built 20 years ago, and had already finished refitting another Shimakaze with plastic shields and single 25mm AA guns from plastic aftermarket sets. I left the Lion Roar photoetch pieces unpainted in the photographs so they could be seen more easily. On the finished ship, the ammo boxes add a touch of realism to the scratchbuilt shields. They look a little large though. When the photoetch shield, ammo boxes and Skywave aftermarket single 25mm guns are added to the fantail of the unfinished Shimakaze, the guns and ammo boxes dwarf the shields. Better to use photoetch 25mm single guns for the photoetch shields. However, there is no way the ammo boxes will ever look like the figure in the instructions - they are simply too large. Maybe they would look better applied vertically to the shields. The vertical ammo boxes look fine against gun tub shields, and are a welcome improvement over plastic pieces . Summary Lion Roar has produced an ultimate set of splinter shields (armored rails) and ammo boxes (caissons) for additional AA guns on late-war Japanese warships in 1/700 scale. Assembly and manipulation of the boxes are easy, but the supports for the rails are very tiny and require needle-point tweezers and care to prevent frustration when handling. You are warned - this set is not for those with shaky or jittery hands. The vertical ammo boxes for gun tubs are the best part of this set, and look great. However, the smaller ammo boxes for single 25mm AA guns are too large, and tend to push the guns too far away from the shield, which may or may not cause problems locating guns on some models. The value of this set is good, an important point in the expensive world of aftermarket sets that can cost more than the ship. About 6-10 destroyers can be fitted out with one set, costing $2 or less per ship. Very highly recommended for super detailing IJN warships. My thanks to Michel Hui and Alain Yuen of Dragon USA for the review sample. References: Mechanism of Japanese Destroyers. 1999. ISBN 4-7698-0898-4. [Note: This book was purchased in a Japanese bookstore and is entirely in Japanese. A web search was little help, so I could not get a full citation.]

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