| Like the Nation, the United States Navy
had very humble beginnings, but grew to respectable size and power during
the Civil War. After the war, Americans had little taste for building up
her Naval forces and new ship design and construction was not pursued to
any serious degree. As European Navies modernised their fleets, the United
States concentrated on Westward exspansion over land instead of sea. Eventually
it was realised that existing naval assets were insuficient to protect
the newly aquired territory and construction of new protected cruisers
were authorised. After a few trial and error designs, the Baltimore entered
service and began to prove herself. While not really state of the art,
she proved to be a sucessful design and soon proved herself. The Baltimore
operated off the Atlantic coast and in the Mediteranean waters when new,
before being sent to protect Americans in Chile. Joining the Asiatic Fleet
she sailed all over the Pacific before returning stateside. When the first
world war was fought, Baltimore was a training ship, and served in numerous
other functions until her scrapping in 1942. Her long life was a testament
to her design.
This kit represents the American Cruiser #3 Baltimore in her 1990 fit.
Let's take a look at what's in the box. |
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| HULL |
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| The Hull on this kit is yet another example of the fine casting that
Combrig is producing these days. The surface detail is extremely well done
with nicely cast deck planking. Locating hulls are cast on for the gun
turrets and the many vents that mount on the otherwise clean deck. |
click images
to enlarge
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| SUPERSTRUCTURE |
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| Superstructure parts are very few, but what there is is well cast.
The small bridge has the same nice detailing as the hull, and the funnels
are nicely formed and sharp in detail. |
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| MAIN WEAPONS |
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| The weapons are very impressive and consist of a three parts. A turret
base, barrel, and sheild that by themselves are pretty finely detailed.
Put them together and you have |
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| SMALL DETAIL ITEMS |
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| SHIPS BOATS |
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| The ships boats are the best I've seen in this scale. The planking
on the bottom of the whaleboats can easily be made out. |
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| INSTRUCTIONS |
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| The Instructions are four pages done in the typical Combrig
style. A plan and elevation with specifications and Historical info is
on page one. A bill of materials and pictures of the kit parts and exploded
assembly views showing parts placement on page two. This is a pretty simple
kit, but I still think this is one area that could use a little improvement.
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| CONCLUSIONS |
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:
Yet another high quality Combrig kit, and another fine addition to the
early war battleship fleets. This one features state of the art casting
with unbelievable detail. I wouldn't recommend this kit for a beginner,
but any one who has built a few ships should have no problems with this
one. This kit is listed on the Pacific
Front Hobbies website for $32.00 (US), a great price for a ship of
this size and detail. It will make a fine addition to your early US Navy
fleet. |
