The Ship Model Forum

just bought the Trumpeter version of the Grand Old Lady, will posts pictures of everything once I get organized.

box/box art. nothing special here

next up: upper and lower hull, waterline plate, main deck and quarterdeck, decals and PE

for the mid-level modelers like myself, the detail is crisp, little to no flash and great attention to detail. I have to say that Warspite is my favourite WW2 ship so I am a bit picky about things that I don't like:

upper/lower hull fit is an issue. this seems to be the case with most Trumpeter 1/700 kits. the upper hull is just a bit wider so that seen head on there's a noticeable overhang. I'm sure with patience and a minimum of swearing this won't be an issue... if it wasn't for the fact that the upper hull is also just the smallest bit warped. it doesn't lay flat and I'll be carefully trying a few solutions on here to remedy that. the deck plates are nice and crisp right down to the decking. I'm going to try and be patient and wait for a company to come out with actual wood decking, but I've had fun painting decking before so stay tuned. as for the PE: I'm scared. I'm not sure how to paint PE or how to fix it to my model so I will be doing some research on here in the coming weeks. it's a great extra to have in the kit though!

main deck:
like I said, for the casual hobbyist, the detail is nice and crisp. sure the gun shields are too thick and there's off-scale detail but most of you reading will already be figuring out how to get rid of all that for your own Warspite. scuttles have brows and the blisters have the explosive vents. I'm happy.

side note:
not sure this is something that Trumpeter has been doing but there's a nice plating detail on the lower hull. granted I don't know enough about warship construction to know if this is accurate but to my untrained eye, it's a nice detail.

B Fret:
contains Fwd superstructure (molded in one piece! no seam lines!) and the aircraft hangar. not to mention there's the 2 aft bulkheads... and if you look really closely you can see WARSPITE written across. not sure how I could ever pick those out in paint, but it's a really nice touch.

C fret:
aft superstructure, fwd superstructure, aircraft hangar structure, funnel (again molded in one piece!). again no complaints about molding or flash. detail seems quite nice and except for some bent hyper-thin masts I have no complaints.

E fret (x2):
ship's boats, 6 inch casemate secondaries, 4 inch AA, ship's crane. I am a fan of how thin the 6-inch casemate guns are. not sure if it's really to scale but looks so much better than the stuff I grew up building in the 80s.

G fret (x2):
octuple pom-poms, 20mm singles and assorted tiny fiddly bits. I see a lot of swearing in my future but once again, for the majority this is detailed and just enough to give our models a nice touch.

K fret (x2)
Main armament. you have the choice of guns with or without "bloomers". you also have nicely molded blast bags (guessing that's for you brass barrel crew). not sure about the large endcaps on the barrels but I usually sand those down a bit anyway. nice detailing on the turrets with tiny rivet lines and such.

ships's planes:
oh yay. clear plastic little planes. my favourite.

well I'm not even close to an expert, but here's my take:
all in all, it's a good kit. there are minor fit issues but hopefully nothing that will get me over my head. for the average modeller, the kit will provide a good challenge but I'm sure the result will be worth it. for the advanced modeller, I hope you'll allow the following opinion: in this scale I believe in the hands of an expert this kit will be outstanding. Warspite is so iconic I'm sure any errors that Trumpeter have made will be looked over just so you can have your own Grand Old Lady in your collection.

p.s.
I hope I haven't made too many mistakes or stepped on anyone's toes. when I bought this kit I had the intention of making her my "how far I've gone" model; that is to say I'd like to take my time and apply all the techniques that I've learned from this wonderful and helpful site. I'll be perhaps asking for advice but I'm not sure how to go about doing that, so if anyone feels like recommending people I should talk to (first time PE, painting PE, general tips and tricks) I would be most grateful. If you would like closeups of frets or questions about the kit, please feel free to ask and I will answer as best I can.

I posted my review as a "week-end hobbyist" so please feel free to correct me or point out flaws.

Thanks for above, do not worry about the engraved ships name, during wartime they were painted to match the superstructure. Of course as soon as the war was over the tiddly bits were re-instated.

_________________
Bryan Johnson

'There are 2 kinds of ships, submarines and targets.'