/700 French Light Cruiser Marseillaise

Reviewed by Timothy Dike
The Marseillaise was a La Galissonnière Class light cruiser built shortly before World War Two. She was armed with nine six inch guns in three tripple turrets. For anti aircraft protection he has eight 3.5" guns, 24 40 mm guns and 16 20 mm light anti aircraft guns. She also carried four 21" torpedo's in two twin tubes. In 1939 she was involved in escorting convoys to and from Great Britain. Her career was cut short when she was scuttled at  Toulon on 27 November 1942 to prevent her from falling into German hands following the capture of that port.

Specifications:
Length 580.7' OA, 548' WL
Beam 57.5' 
Draft 17.7'
Full Load Displacement 10,850 tons 
Standard Displacement 7,600 tons
Speed 31 knots (36 in trials)
Complement 674
Other ships in this class:
La Galissonnière, Jean de Vienne, Georges Leygues, Gloire, and Montcalm

The Hull is pretty well cast and has fair amount of detailing. I don't care for the molded on anchors it is easy to sand these off if you wish. Overall the casting is clean and will need a very minimum of work to clean up.
click images
to enlarge
Superstructure parts are all nicely molded on thin resin wafers. You will need to be careful removing some of the more delicate parts from the wafer as they are pretty thin. The Loire-Nieuport 130 float plane looks pretty good. The main gun turrets are mounted on the wafer in two different ways, a nice touch that will allow you to know what each side should look like when you are sanding off the attachment points.
The instructions consist of two sides of an standard sheet of paper. Barely adequet to build a ship like this. I had a tough time finding reference material for this on and the instructions wont help much. The included color plan and profile is a nice touch though.
There is no photo etch in this kit, but a good set of railings will really make this kit stand out.
Conclusions:

It's nice to see some of the overlooked ships made available by HP.  Thanks to Pacific Front Hobbies for the review sample. This kit is currently listed for $59.00 US. Check out this kit and the other HP Models 1/700 French Navy subjects in Pacific Front Hobbies Website.



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