G'day people,
I will be posting progress pics of my 1/200 Bronco Chinese Navy 'Ningbo', an updated 956EM Sovremmenny Class DDG. The kit contains much of the same plastic as the Trumpy 1/200 Sov kit, and that includes most of the mistakes too
The PLAN 956EM's differ from other 956's mainly in the area around the helo deck and aft superstructure. The forward and aft mounted AK-630 30mm units are deleted, as is the aft AK-130 150mm gun. The rear mounted AK-630's are replaced with two 'Kashtan' CIWIS systems, one per side.
I will not be following the kit instructions exactly, rather I will work on sub assemblies and bring the whole lot together at the end.
I began the build with something that felt familiar, the ships helicopter. The kit includes a nice representation of the Ka-27 'Helix', however, the vertical stabs should angle inwards at the front instead of parallel to the a/c centreline.
I simply gave the horizontal stabs a few quick wipes with a file and this problem was corrected.
The chopper was painted in FS36375 and the details picked out with a brush. The decals went on well and were sealed with a coat of matt varnish before some light weathering was added using Tamiya weathering powders.
I am waiting on the WEM PE set before adding the rotors, there are some PE rotor head details that need to be fitted before the rotor assembly can be fitted, so this little guy was put aside until the PE arrives. The bracing struts under the horizontal stabs were added as well as an aerial between the stabs.
Next up, the ships three boats were cleaned up and assembled. Many of the pics I have seen o the Ningbo show these fitted with tarps. I decided this would be a nice touch so I covered the boats with some Bare Metal self adhesive foil
These were sprayed white and put aside to dry.
The hull was the next item to get some attention. Bronco has made a few errors (perhaps copied the Trumpeter errors?) here as like the Trumpy kit, the bow portholes are located too high and the 'knuckle' is also too high and very poorly defined. The rear hull should taper from about the midpoint to the stern, but the kit hull remains parallel. However the biggest gaff is that there should only be one central rudder, not the twin set up depicted in the kit.
I will fix up the bow portholes but I think correcting the 'knuckle' is beyond my meagre skills. I also decided to correct the rudder arrangement.
I have filled in the two rudder locating slots with some scrap plastic and sanded them flush. A second coat of filler should blend everything in nicely.
I am primarily a jet builder so go easy if I get the terminology wrong!
cheers,
Pappy