M o d e l W a r s h i p s . c o m Hasegawa 1/700 IJN Destroyer Yugumo Class Detail Up Etching Parts

Hasegawa 1/700 IJN Destroyer Yugumo Class Detail Up
Etching Parts Set A (Yugumo/Hayanami)

Reviewed June 2018
by Dan Kaplan

As it has with many of its new kits in the last few years, Hasegawa has released a companion set of photo-etch for its 1/700 IJN Yugumo class destroyer kits Yugumo and Hayanami. I applaud the release, as I find it far easier to draw from one source rather than several, assuming the parts are accurate and very much to scale. It is a fairly comprehensive set of relief etched brass. Excluding multiples of a given part, there are nearly 80 parts on the fret.

Included are: railings for the main deck, compass bridge deck, and AA platforms, a low railing for the roof of the bridge, small radio masts and anchoring pillars for aerial wires, bridge wing supports, life rings, ESM passive radar detectors for the bridge faces, an RDF loop antenna, access and vertical ladders, torpedo reload girders and gantries for both the forward and the aft torpedo reload bays, a maneuvering light array, an athwartship depth charge rack, jack staffs, watertight doors, grills for the major air intakes, a new housing cover for the port side of the rear torpedo storage bay, proper renditions of the forward boat davits, aft boat davits, a Type 13 radar, a covering for the port side of the radar shack, structural supports for the late war forward AA platform, and a splinter shield for the forward AA platform.

It’s a well-designed fret. The main deck railings are correctly of the drooped chain variety and conform to the curvature of the decks. They also appear to be the correct scale height (900mm actual), the correct number of cross bars, and are reasonably fine in thickness. Actually, all the parts seem very well scaled, which means the pieces are on the smaller side and require a bit of careful handling.

1-700-Yugumo-(H)-class-Photoetch-closeup

There isn’t any roll off depth charge racks for the stern, so this set is really meant for early and mid-war fit ships. Of course, it’s not difficult to source a set of PE racks if one wants to model a late war version of an early model Yugumo. (Eligible ships would be Kazegumo, Naganami, Tamanami, and Fujinami.)

Surprisingly, one thing that is missing are the funnel grills. I can’t even begin to imagine why they were omitted. Fortunately, there are good alternative version available, particularly from Rainbow.

Instructions

The set comes with a two-sided, multipaneled sheet of instructions. These are printed in black and white, and feature three-point illustrations of each section of the kit requiring photoetch and the appropriate piece(s). Everything is marked clearly, and I think the illustration very self -explanatory. One side highlights the fittings for Yugumo and the other for Hayanami. There are clear examples on how to fold the various pieces. Also included is a key for all the numbered parts.

This looks to be a very complete and satisfying set of photoetch, aside from the omission of the funnel grills. This set was courtesy of my wallet, via HobbyLink Japan. The cost, less shipping, was US $7.35. I think that is an exceptional value for a comprehensive brass photoetch set.