Preview - 1:700 Aoshima Yukikaze [WL.D041 • 250]

Overview

Date of Tooling: 1972
Previous Owners: 1
Original purchase: 1977
Original Price: £1.40 [£10.88 in 2020 GBP]

This particular kit is of the miracle ship of the Kagero class Fleet Destroyers, Yukikaze; specifically of her latewar configuration, which saw her 2nd 127mm Gun Turret replaced with two dedicated anti-aircraft emplacements, among other modifications.

The first re-boxing, of one the Shizuoka based company's earliest warship kits, my expectations were quite high for this 700th scale kit. The result however, was rather different, though informative.

What's in the Box

As is still typical for this scale today, the packaging is the bare minimum necessary, with a compact end on box with one stapled polybag containing:

1x Upper Hull
1x Waterline plate
2x Sprues, labelled A & A B
1x Waterline Series steel ballast weight
1x waterslide decals sheet
1x own brand adhesive tube

along with,

2x Instruction Sheets, duplex, in English & Japanese respectively.

Being a late-1970's / early-'80's kit, bilingual is as convoluted as it gets. The use of the previous logo
the otherwise decent English sheet however, proved a bit of a hint to what was to come.

Quality

Being fairly early in production run by Airfix or Frog standards, basic but functional details and moderate flash were expected, but are far worse in practice, with test fitting of parts affirming this.

Flash on the parts is heavy, with some parts malformed on the sprues, to the point of being almost unsalvagable. Particular offenders are parts 1, 7, 21 & 31. Both of the ships 127mm Gun Turrets and 24" Torpedo Launchers can also at best be summed up as; in significant need of Milliput.

The kit's detail could be called good, if abstractness was the objective. Whilst a model that was produced for wargamers - to build fleets of ships for miniature sea battles - can be expected to be minimal on the finer details, this kit takes the notion a bit far, with large parts of the relatively small warship's superstructure and fittings straight up missing, while others are at best only loosely represented, such as the 25mm anti-aircraft platforms. The guns themselves for the latter however are contrastingly well moulded, and as one would expect for a kit of this era.

Several parts on the kit, such as the waterline hull plate, also have the telltale signs of being produced on a larger sprue of dozens, then crudely snapped off and added to each kit's part bag on the production line.

A last standout detail on the kit are the partially deleted Kanji 天津風 [Amatsukaze] on sprue A, which as far as I'm aware this kit shares most or all the parts of, alongwith two other ships of the Kagero class.

Conclusion

A lot has changed in modelling since this kit - and her three tooling siblings - first debuted in 1972, including a complete retooling by Aoshima in 2004, which starkly contrasts its precursor. The availability of several detailing kits also means most of this kit's issues are rectifiable.

Of those options I would advise the first if seeking best value for money, as the present Aoshima model is of a vastly higher standard. If the owner of this kit by chance, however, I'd say it's worth completing with a detailing kit, or alternatively a cheap option for trying out and perfecting scratchbuilt detailing techniques on.

A combination of both the latter options are due for this kit soon, alongwith a complete review of the build and results.

Kit Rating: 3/8