1/700 AR-5 USS Vulcan
Repair Ship
| The lead ship of a new class of repair vessel the Vulcan
was launched december 1940. This ship represents a purpose built repair
ship designed to provide forward deployed maintenance facilities. These
ships and the similar Dixie, Fulton & Currituck classes, were designed
to follow and support the Fleet as part of War Plan Orange. They
would maintain the fighting ships from remote island bases that would be
seized as the Fleet fought it's way across the Pacific. The relativity
heavy armament was to give them a self defense capability while anchored
in these remote and undefended desert islands.
Specifications: Displacement 9,430, 17,000 full load.
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| The hull on my kit was nicely molded with nice deck detail and hull plate on the side. If you look closely at the prototype photo above you will notice the hull plate lines running back from the anchor, these are molded onto the hull as well. I have not plans to compare to but the length and beam were right on the money. Looks like the shrink factor was calculated very close. The only flaw was a small casting gate on the stern, easily removed with a little sanding. |  |
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| The various superstructure parts and deck levels are molded in a two part mold and resemble those of injection molded kits. The decks are a little curved but flexible enough that are easily set in place with very little effort. The decks all include a locating runner that fits into a slot on the adjoining part. The deck planking is exceptionally nice and the splinter shields are well molded. Even those massive cranes that tower above these ships are nicely reproduced with a combination of resin and photo etch. |  |
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| Boats and miscellaneous fittings are well molded as well. The masts are molded in resin, which I'm sure will not satisfy some modelers as they are probably too soft to hold up the rigging if added. I personally like this approach as they represent perfect templates to use for making brass rod replacements. The 5" 38 cal guns look very accurate, though it is hard to measure them in this scale. The gun house is offset to one side and the profile looks correct. Hopefully these will be made available separately in the future. |  |
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| Probably the one thing that will really make this ship stand out is the photo etch. With the three deck levels running most of the length of the ship, the effect of the railing will be a real crowd pleaser. I especially like the way the boat davits are molded with rigging and those little dangling lines that you see in close-up shots. As on some of his other releases the steps on the inclined stairs are made to be bent horizontal, much like those of large scale PE sets. This might be a bit overwhelming for some first time modelers, but the choice if yours, to bend them or not. It will take a magnifying glass to see the results but should be worth the effort. |  |
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| Instructions are pretty extensive and cover all the bases. I wish more Resin kit producers would expend this much energy on showing us how it all goes together. There are twelve pages not including the two prototype photo's (one is shown above), and include a camo design sheet to help you paint it in the Ms 32 d-4a scheme. | |||
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| Conclusions:
Loose Cannon Productions has again supplied us with an important class of ship that will make a valuable addition to our fleets. As a modeler I applaud David Angelo for tackling a ship of this type, Battleships and Carriers are much more popular and perhaps more profitable. But most of us have enough of those ships and this kit fills a large void in the Service fleet. I would recommend this kit to anyone who has a little resin ship building experience. It is a complete kit and requires no after market accessories to complete. This kit lists for $45.00 and is a great value for the modeler. |
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