MSRP: $74.95
Website: www.stevenshobby.com

History

She was the first New Orleans Class of second-generation treaty cruisers. Her keel was laid down on September 9,1931 at the Mare Island Navy Yard, Vallejo, California. After joining the fleet on February 10,1934, she served in both the Atlantic and the Pacific. She was docked for refit at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 when the Japanese attacked, but all her anti-aircraft guns had been removed to replace the mounts, and her boilers were inactive. Luckily, she was unscathed, and, after an accelerated refit, she sailed on December 16 for the war zone. The heavy cruiser served valiantly in the early Pacific campaigns and was the flagship of Rear Admiral Norman Scott during Operation Watchtower of the Guadalcanal-Tulagi Campaign. Thirteen years after being commissioned (February 10, 1947), the USS San Francisco was decommissioned and placed in the reserve fleet. She was stricken from the Navy roles on March 1, 1958, and the proud ship was sent to the breakers December 2, 1960.

The Kit

The 1:350 Trumpeter model of the USS San Francisco is very detailed with excellent fit and has clean parts needing little trimming. It has 263 parts molded in gray, red (hull below water line,) and clear (aircraft.) The hull may be completed as either display mount or waterline--both options are possible due to the two-part hull. I was pleased to find that the portholes were molded (recessed) rather than being nonexistent as on many other popular kits of this scale. Prop guards are separate and fit easily in the marked areas on the hull. The search light tower comes in several open latticed parts that fit together well to form a realistic tower. Unfortunately, the lattice found on the two catapults is formed as simply an impression on a solid piece of plastic. While, this can be avoided by using PE, it does require the modeler to spend another $30.00 or so to improve.

The documentation is a 16-page booklet with 25 construction steps that are clearly illustrated. Trumpeter also includes a glossy color drawing of the finished ship showing the correct colors to be used for the MS 21 paint scheme. The glossy paint guide is very difficult to follow in places because the black ID lines get lost in the drawing.

I built the San Francisco out of the box except for using real chain for the anchors. I decided to build her as a display model that made it necessary to attach the two hull sections. Trumpeter, as always, did a good job in the fit of the two sections—the job went smoothly with only a slight seam line. I added the rudder and prop guards and masked the hull for painting using White Ensign’s Hull Red. The Hull Red, while authentic, produced a dark muted red that does not show as well as my normal hull color of a black tinted red. The upper hull, as well as the vertical portions of the superstructure, is painted in a light gray color.

The kit is designed to portray the ship as she was in 1942 which would call for the superstructure to be painted a dark blue -- Measure 21 paint scheme. To achieve more contrast, I opted to paint her as she was briefly in 1945 -- Measure 22. MS 22 calls for gray vertical surfaces and Navy Blue horizontal surfaces and deck (I know, I know.) If the ship is to be the 1945 version then there should be modifications to the bridge and searchlight towers. No one at my house knows the difference and I wanted the contrast that MS 22 would give me. The MS-21, however, would have been much easier to paint since the gun splinter shields on the model (to be painted gray) are very small. The masking and painting proved to be very tedious.

I next assembled all the superstructure subassemblies, being careful to paint all the out of the way portions prior to assembly. I also tackled the tedious job of gluing the shields to the tiny 20mm Oerlikons. What a job! Finally, I found a way to handle this task without going blind, crazy or both. I left the guns on the sprue and, using tweezers and a tiny bit of glue, I placed the shields on the guns. There are two sides to the shield so make sure you have the indented side facing the gun’s rear to get a good fit. The other, larger, guns assemble with no hassle.

The fore and aft 8-inch gun turrets are designed to rotate, but barrels are fixed. The two main deck sections are mounted on the upper hull with a break just forward of the catapults. The kit contains vent stacks, winches, hatches, life rafts, radars, masts, and lots of other detail.

The SOC Seagull seaplanes are molded clear (in nine parts each!) so that, when the body and wings are painted, the canopies are still clear. Putting the planes together takes time as it is best to clamp the plane in a holder of some sort while the small parts dry at each stage. Rushing this job will amount to a messy finished product. I learned this lesson too late and had to accept painted canopies rather than clear. It was at this point that I pulled one of the dumbest modeling stunts of my life.

I had finished one of the seaplanes except for a single, small piece and was satisfied with the results. To hasten the drying of the glue, I placed the plane in front of a small space heater that was keeping my feet warm on the cold winter night. I turned a short time later to retrieve my finished plane and found a puddle of plastic. You will notice only one seaplane on my model. Now, you know why!

For finishing, Trumpeter got it right this time! Earlier Trumpeter ship models carried a 50-star flag rather than the 48 stars of 1942. The San Francisco flag has 48 stars so congratulations to the folks at Trumpeter for handling this important detail for those of us in the States.

Now that the ship is finished, I find many things that I can make better on my next ship, but that will always be the case. Any defaults in the model are mine since Trumpeter has given us a beautiful, well detailed, and extremely clean kit from which to work. My two recommendations to Trumpeter are to do as detailed a job on the other lattice parts as they did on the search light towers, and to revise the paint guide to be more readable. The completed model would also benefit from the addition of photo-etch railings. I would also like to see a version taken from 1944 that would sport the fancy Measure 33/13d camouflage paint scheme.

I highly recommend this model, but urge the modeler to pickup a set of PE available from third party vendors. My thanks to Stevens International and Trumpeter for the review kit and for giving the modeling community such a fine model of this famous ship.