Tamiya

1/350 IJN Mogami Heavy Cruiser

Kit Number: 78023

Reviewed by  Michael Scott, IPMS# 43177

MSRP: $200.00 Review sample provided by Tamiya USA: tamiyausa.com IJN Mogami, circa 1942 A very brief historical summary (there is a longer account on the instruction sheet) would have to mention the conversion of the original light cruiser hull to a heavy by the substitution of the 15.5 cm guns with 20.5 cm batteries, and the fact that she was found to be rather top-heavy and required further modifications to address this. Most famously, the Mogami and her sister cruiser Mikuma participated in the Battle of Midway, after which they managed to collide, slowing both enough that they were the next day found by Dauntless aircraft from the US Task Force and pounded heavily, the Mikuma being sunk and the Mogami straggling back to Japan for repair and refit. If you are interested in this episode and the Midway action in detail, I highly recommend Shattered Sword by Parshall and Tully, reviewed by me on this site. I received the kit in a very long box. It was full of parts, well packed with each sprue in its own plastic bag. A small photo etch metal fret is included and used mainly on the catapults, booms and communications structure. A flat plate is included for a waterline version of the ship, but I chose the full hull version. The instruction booklet is not up to Wingnut Wings standard, but is accurate and comprehensive except for the floatplanes; it does not identify all of the aircraft included in the kit. Construction Plan and the Hull Initially, my plan was to paint the model in three main stages: the lower hull, the main and 01 level decks, and the other parts - superstructures, turrets, etc. This appeared to be a sensible approach since the waterline demarcation of the gray upper and red lower hull was already established by the division of those parts, making the masking off of the lower hull unnecessary. The remaining structures on the ship are gray, so they could be sprayed on their trees and installed later, requiring only touch up paint. However, after studying the plans and the construction sequences I decided that a better approach was to separate the builds into subassemblies, which could be constructed whole, then set aside. When all were done, they could be painted as assemblies. This would make for better bonding of the joins on all of the parts, as well as eliminating much of the touch up painting required. Additionally, breaking the model into subassemblies will enable me to assemble it in an "out of the box" configuration for the review and, if I plan it correctly, allow some of the subassemblies to be easily removed so that deck railings in photo etched brass could later be applied much more easily than if everything were solidly glued in place. As a modeling friend pointed out, this is such a nice kit that it really deserves PE railings at the minimum. Tamiya's approach to engineering the fit and fasteners for the lower hull and the upper hull sides is unique, and appears at this point to provide an almost perfect fit. The fit is so good that I believe no filling will be required between the upper and lower hull assemblies, and that, in conjunction with the bulkheads will result in a very correct and rigid hull. I will be building a full hull version, although a waterline version is also provided by the simple expedient of supplying a flat red plastic plate that attaches to the upper hull assemblies. The extremely rigid hull assembly, in either version, is accomplished by the inclusion of seven bulkheads that fit vertically on, or in, the lower hull. They positively locate via notches and tabs, and when installed so that all of the tabs are aligned and into their respective notches, result in solid, vertical bulkheads. These provide rigidity and also serve as the attachment points for the sides of the upper hull, which is cast in two long sections, from bow to stern.

Four of the larger bulkheads have holes cast on their port and starboard sides which will accept metal brackets that the modeler attaches to the upper port and starboard hull sides with tiny screws. Tamiya supplies a screwdriver in the kit, and mine was fortunately magnetized enough to hold the tiny screws while I carefully maneuvered them into place and screwed the brackets to the hull. The metal brackets, two on each side, fit around a bulkhead so that another, larger screw is passed through the bracket and bulkhead and tightened in place. From the fit of these assemblies without glue or screws, it appears there will be no gap between the lower and upper hull parts. I suspect that any small gap can be readily closed by using Tamiya Extra Thin cement flowed sparingly into the void, holding the gap closed with finger pressure until the cement sets.

The screw shaft supports went on with no issues and little or no need for filler between them and the hull. If I do find a tiny gap, I will use PVA (Elmer's, here in the States) to close it. The rudders will attach via polycaps. The shafts and screws will be left until the end of the assembly process.

Subassemblies I began subassembly construction while also watching various events in the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. I built the unique dual stack assembly, the ships' power boats and the turrets for the main battery. Stack: The unique dual, upswept stack assembly was easily done with little seam work required. The elaborate piping and venting are cast in four pieces and fit flawlessly. Four simple photo etch parts are added at this stage on both sides of the stack assembly.

Boats: The gigs are constructed in two pieces for later painting. The deck parts have their sprue attachment points on the edges, which interfere with the fit of the deck to the hull, so these have to be cleaned off and carved, scraped, or sanded flush for a good fit to the deck. Not an easy task given the small size of these pieces. Probably took me most of the women's freestyle ski competition to complete (what with a few pauses to digest the craziness happening on the screen). I can see some additional work on the other boats since the finely "planked" decks on the smaller ones have ugly ejector pin marks in them. Some might not be visible. Time will tell. So, I need to work out a sane way of dealing with this. Turrets: Fortunately, there are parts enough on two trees to build six main battery turrets while the Mogami only requires five. One of the turret base plates was missing the long pin which mates with a polycap that is to be installed in the barbette so that the turret can be turned, or removed as needed. I think it was broken off before the part tree was bagged, as it was definitely snapped off, but not in the bag. One has to fit tiny polycaps into the base plates of the turrets before assembling the sides and top. No problems other than dealing with small, slick parts. These will receive the gun barrels, which are supplied in various configurations, deployed for action, or under weigh or in port. The barrels and blast bags will be painted later in the assembly.

More Subassemblies and Priming I built the aft bridge, stack and crane, along with a mast assembly. Each used a bit of photo etch metal, supplied in the kit. Construction went smoothly, with only minor seam cleanup required. The metal parts supplied with the kit are, as is usual with Tamiya kits, rather more thick and sturdy than the run-of-the-mill photo etch part. They are easily removed from the sprue, and clean up nicely with a sanding stick. The metal side plates on the stack assembly were attached with Gator Glue adhesive. The wire bracing on the crane was attached with Gator Glue at the main mast joint, but with CA at the locations connecting to the crane boom. The boom is faced on both sides with metal, this being glued with Gator Glue. From my experience, Gator Glue works fine with painted or rough etched parts, but for smooth parts, like the boom facings and the bracing wire that have small contact points, CA is a better choice.

I primed the hull and deck parts with Tamiya Fine Gray primer preparatory to painting both with Tamiya acrylic. The gray with XF-75 (Kure Arsenal) IJN Gray, the hull with a mix of X-7 Red and XF-10 Flat Brown, heavy on the red. The decks will be painted with a different mix of XF-7 and XF-10, heavy on the brown to simulate linoleum brown. After those paints have cured, and are protected by a coat of Future, I will assemble the hull and main decks. Hull, Decks and Paint After painting the decks and hull sides, as described earlier, I attached the hull sides to the hull bottom by means of the brackets and screws provided. The fit of the upper and lower hull parts is almost perfect. In the few places where gaps exist they are mainly due to the long upper hull pieces A1 and A2 being very flexible and slightly bowing out in places. By slightly, I mean one or two millimeters. I glued these in flush with Tamiya Extra Thin cement. At the very edge of the bow, where the upper and lower hulls meet, there was a tiny step present, again about one millimeter. This is easily shaved with a sharp blade. So, there was no need to mask between the red and the gray parts of the hull. The torpedoes and launchers were painted and pushed into their polycaps so they can be positioned in various attitudes. Next, the main decks were screwed into place, followed by the two piece 01 level deck, also screwed firmly into position. Do not forget to install the two large polycaps before the 01 level deck pieces.. The last big painting chore was to hand-paint in gray all of the deck equipment that was not supposed to be in the "linoleum" red-brown. About an hour spent with the Optivisor and various small brushes sufficed to deal with these parts. The rails for the catapults were later surfaced with a graphite pencil to suggest "use" or "wear" effects.

All of the remaining parts were then subjected to a coating of Tamiya Fine Gray Primer, in readiness for application of Tamiya's IJN Kure Arsenal gray acrylic with an airbrush. Superstructure and Guns I attached many, many deck detail parts to the bow and 01 level decks - ventilators, winches, barbettes for the main battery, etc. These add tremendously to the "feel" of the ship, being details that can't readily be duplicated if cast into the deck structures. I then attached the side gun stations. It is best to assemble each then glue the assembly to the deck, rather than in parts like the plans suggest. I cleaned up and drilled out all of the main battery gun barrels. To get an acceptable hole in the ends of these small pieces, I made an indentation in the center of each barrel end with a needle chucked into a handle. Then I drilled into the barrel with a #79 drill bit down about one mm or so. Next I drilled the hole a little wider with a drill bit that was smaller than the end barrel diameter, but larger than the #79 hole. Next, I painted the blast bags with an off white acrylic from Vallejo and inserted them into their respective turrets when dry. The tops of the stacks and mast were painted a flat black. It is best to follow the plan sequence in attaching the stack and superstructure assemblies to the deck, as getting them out of sequence can make for fit and alignment issues. The bridge section of the superstructure was built with little trouble. The most tedious part was in cleaning up and placing all of the binocular stations for the air defense stations. All of these bridge subassemblies fit very well together and the resulting superstructure glued to the hull. Next major procedures will be to add the fantail details, the aft main battery barbettes and turrets, the catapults with planes - there are eight aircraft to choose from, and finally the boats and deck gear such as anchor chains, anchors, etc.

Fantail, Rear Batteries, Boats The fantail was populated with the many deck parts. This was not difficult, but rather tedious. It does improve the 'busy' look of the deck though and is well worth the bother. The two rear turrets were pushed into their respective barbettes once they were assembled with their polycaps inside. Now, with the crane in place along with the superstructure, stack, bridge superstructure and forward batteries, she really looks like a warship. Assembling the masts for the forward and rear turrets is simple, and mounting hole locations are provided by stickers attached temporarily to the tops of the respective turrets. The metal propulsion shafts were slid into place and secured with small amounts of CA. All of the ship's boats were painted IJN gray, and Tamiya Desert Yellow where wood was required. The built-in fenders were touched with Vallejo off white, then assembled and attached to the decks. The davits were installed and here was one of the "misses" of the kit. When one mounts the davits square to the decks and perpendicular, the cast-on part of the falls (rigging to the boats) does not line up with the receiving holes cast into the boats. Either the davits are too wide or the holes too close together. To make this right, the plastic falls will need to be replaced by something resembling rope. This will be a later project. Also, on the small boats, ejector pin marks are placed in the midst of the planking. I decided to ignore these and get on with it. Next up: catapults and airplanes.

Brass Gun Barrels & Float Planes I received a set of Master - Reality in Miniature turned gun barrels from IPMS to review and, I thought, incorporate into the build. However, I did not read the listing correctly (kind of goes with my not being able to follow assembly instructions, regardless of how clear and detailed they may be) and got a set for the Mikuma light cruiser instead of the heavy version. Difference? Main battery guns were 15.5 cm rather than 20.5. Being totally unaware of my mistake, I installed five of the 15.5 cm barrels on Mogami's main turrets. "Funny," I thought, "these look a trifle small." No kidding. Fortunately, I could repair the damage on most and had a few spare plastic main battery gun barrels in the kit, so it worked out. And, the Mogami had 12.7 cm high angle guns for anti-aircraft defense, so I used the new 12.5 cm brass barrels on them. The JAL saw blade with the fine teeth made the job of removing the plastic barrels very straightforward. The barrels must be cut away from a center tab on their plastic part, then two holes drilled on either side of this tab and the barrels glued into place. I only mis-drilled one hole. Getting the recoil mechanisms in place to trap the barrel assemblies onto their mounts was somewhat fiddly but patience and perseverance prevailed. The shields make up almost a turret sans back. These were glued into place and then the mounts could be pinned into their previously installed polycaps .

I also finished three of the float planes to man the flight deck aft. One Aichi E13A "Jake", one Nakajima E8N "Dave" and one unidentifiable biplane float plane. This gets interesting. I built this plane, which could be an E1Y3, but I am not sure. Google searches, resort to the j-plane site and looking through Hasegawa model kits reveals nothing. The instructions do not refer to it either, although the plane is included with the kit. Others will know what this airplane is, but I find it distressing that it is so difficult to identify. J-Aircraft.com was singularly unhelpful. I thought at the least that site would have basic pictures or profiles of all the Japanese planes used in the Pacific War and I could match up the model with a drawing or photo and identify it. No way. Research continues.... It's the one on the left. (Post Script: I posted the question about the unidentified plane on Hyperscale and within an hour had many useful responses and a positive identification. It's an "Alf".)

Finishing Touches The last items to be constructed were the high-angle guns and mounts and the "odds and ends" - anchor chain, small booms, anchors, flags... I used the Master brass barrels for the high angle 12.7 cm guns. The screws were painted brass with Andrea acrylic and glued in place. The rudders were pushed into their polycap mounts. The anchor chains, real chains, had to be painted gray and superglued into place so that it appears the anchors are taking a strain on the chain. The plastic flag staffs were mounted and the paper flags attached with Elmer's. I used CA to attach the float planes to their places on the rails. One "Jake", one "Dave", one "Alf". Although the kit does not call for an "Alf", I liked it, and decided to use one anyway. With that, the Mogami was done. Out of the box. Those who look closely will see that the smaller ships boats are not mounted to the decks or davits. I will address the issue of proper falls alignment before doing that. Later, probably after a few WWI kits, I intend to add photo etched railings, give it a flat coat and either a wash, or more likely, a going over with dark pastels to bring out the corners, shadows and recesses. Perhaps a touch of discoloration here and there, but no rust. I spent a lot of years on Navy ships at sea and the boatswains mates did not allow that to happen. I figure the Imperial Japanese Navy was similarly on top of it, at least in early 1942.

If you like ships, this kit is an outstanding model to spend your time and money on. The fit, at least 98% of it, is excellent, the way the hull and decks are engineered to fit and screw together makes this one solid and exact.

I can recommend this one without reservations. Many thanks to Tamiya and IPMS for providing this excellent ship kit to build and display.