This item is a square bridge designed to fit the 1/350th Dragon USS Buchanan kit to make it into the last 20 Gleaves variants that had "square" bridges. These ships were designed to help speed up the construction process and reduce the height and therefore center of gravity of the Mk37 director. The last 4 were even more unique in having their 40mm battery staggered, the port side one being abreast the aft funnel and the starboard one in the traditional location for the Benson/Gleaves class on the aft deckhouse. These ships saw their fair share of service in both Atlantic and Pacific theaters, 2 were lost due to enemy action, 1 was lost due to an internal explosion, most likely caused by her "Mousetrap" ASW gear and 2 were severely damaged, 1 being considered a total loss and written off. After the war they were placed into reserve with only the surviving DMS conversion remaining in active service until 1956.

Gleaves Class, Square Faced Bridge

• USS Carmick (DD-493/DMS-33)
• USS Doyle (DD-494/DMS-34)
• USS Endicott (DD-495/DMS-35)
• USS McCook (DD-496/DMS-36)
• USS Frankford (DD-497)
• USS Davison (DD-618/DMS-37)
• USS Edwards (DD-619)
• USS Glennon (DD-620)*
• USS Jeffers (DD-621/DMS-27)
• USS Maddox (DD-622)*
• USS Nelson (DD-623)
• USS Baldwin (DD-624)
• USS Harding (DD-625/DMS-28)**
• USS Satterlee (DD-626)
• USS Thompson (DD-627/DMS-38)
• USS Welles (DD-628)
• USS Stevenson (DD-645)
• USS Stockton (DD-646)
• USS Thorn (DD-647)
• USS Turner (DD-648)*
  "*" Lost
  "**" Severely damaged by Kamikaze's off of Okinawa, written off as a total loss and not worth repair

This accessory set has 28 resin parts and 38 photo-etch pieces. The items covered include search lights, signal lights, fighting lights and details in both resin and Photo-etch which includes the lookout seats and binoculars. Parts are cast in a very soft grey resin, if you didn't know better you would swear it was injection plastic. Fit overall is very nice, there is no exterior flash and casting gates remove very easily. There is some flash inside of the mold, I assume to allow for the structures to be cast hollow and allow open hatches and interior detail similar to the DML kit itself. This flash is ultra thin, it pretty much just popped out requiring minimal cleanup with a very sharp #11 blade and some sanding sticks. The photo etch is very comprehensive considering this is just the Bridge structure of the ship containing 38 pieces(mine was missing part "D" which is a navigational light mounted on the face of the bridge) including searchlight pedestals, railings and details like life rings.

Overall this is a must see to believe accessory, the price would be the only real down side to this kit considering you will probably pay as much for this as you did/will for the kit to which it goes on. But if you are looking to build one of these unique ships, the PE alone almost makes it worth it considering the level of detail and it will save you some scratchbuilding. It would go very well with the Cyber-Hobby 1945 Buchanan as that kit comes with the twin 40mm's that these ships carried, I also think that it would retrofit any of the BWN/Yankee Modelworks resin kits as well. I got mine directly from Pavel at Admiralty Model Works for $35.00US plus shipping and it arrived very quick.