The Ship Model Forum

Just peeled the plastic off Trumpeter’s new 1/700 NEW ORLEANS. I was pretty excited about a 1/700 Treaty Cruiser in plastic and not resin! That said, a quick inspection of the kit parts shows that the hull, superstructure and most weapons are crudely molded, oversized and look almost toy like. Some parts are so poorly molded that you would almost suspect a problem with the molding process. Lots of flash, all gun shields are ridiculously thick and the boats are laughable. The 20 mm, 40 mm (I think they are supposed to be quad 40s) and quad 1.1 guns are the worst that I have ever seen. At first blush the main deck pieces, cranes, main turrets and 5 inch guns look OK. Sorry Trumpeter, but Yuck.

How can a company that produced such a beautiful 1/350 HMS HOOD (built it for the last IPMS Nationals) produce something like this. I have also built their 1/700 NORTH CAROLINA and WASHINGTON and despite the poor superstructure fit up, were OK overall. I have always suspected that Trumpeter had a couple of different teams that design and mold their kit, now I am sure of it, and this kit was clearly produced by the “C” team. For the price of this kit and state of the art recently displayed by Tamiya and Hasegawa, we had the right to expect more from this kit.

I hate to be harsh, but this kit is a disappointment. Rich

What brand of paint do you use? The 5-N on your San Fran looks much lighter than the ModelMaster 5-N that I have. In fact, it's nearly impossible to tell the difference between it and the 20-B Deck Blue unless you look very closely.