by Kym Knight
1/350 IJN Mogami 1944 Hybrid (Yankee Modelworks)
The Mogami class cruiser was 661 feet long, 59.1 feet wide and had a draft of 18.1 feet. She had 10 each 8”, 8 each 5” and 8 each 25mm guns along with 12 each 21” torpedo tubes. She carried 3 aircraft. She was built at Kaigun Kosho, Kure, Japan in 1937. The Mogami was the first of four cruisers laid down under the terms of the London Naval Treaty. She and her three sisters were originally designed with fifteen 6.1 inch guns in triple turrets, but these were replaced in 1939 with ten 8.1 inch guns in twin turrets. This armament was changed after Mogami was almost destroyed at the Battle of Midway in 1942. The two after turrets (four of her 8.1 inch guns) were removed to make way for an increased number of floatplanes. This Yankee Modelworks kit of the IJN Mogami represents the ship when she was sunk; complete with flight deck conversion.
The build was pretty straight forward until it was time to fit the flight deck to the hull. The support girders are assembled first then fixed to the hull, then the flight deck is added to its position. Sounds easy, but I had a few problems with the gun tub supports aligning properly. After a bit of trimming and altering, it finally came together. As always, resin kit instructions are minimal, but as I had a copy of the Gakken book on her, this presented no problems. Probably the best reference was Jeff Lin's 1:700 build of Mogami, awesome detail. I've added some of my sailing ship rigging cord as splinter shiels protection and as always, paint by WEM Colourcoats. This ship will be seen later in a more scenic display with other 44' IJN ships.
