The Ship Model Forum

Takom's recent release of D553 Andrea Doria and D554 Caio Duilio is now in the stash and having given it a cursory look over, I h ave a couple of questions I would open to the experts. But first, let's set up a proper thread.

For those that may be mildly interested but unfamiliar as I was, some information pages:

WIkipedia overview of the program that lead to ships for two navies

SeaForces Informational pages:
Orizzonte Class
D553 Andrea Doria
D554 Caio Duilio

Horizon Class
D620 Forbin
D621 Chevalier Paul

As far as I could tell the Takom kit is the first in 1/350th. I was able to find one 1/700 model in the gallery and one review:
Gwylan Models 1/700 D553 Andrea Doria review by Ayala Botto
Veteran Models 1/700 D620 Forbin test shot by Hanchang Kuo
It doesn't appear that the Veteran Models kit ever made it to market.

Initial survey of the Takom 1/250 kit is favorable but it is not without some omissions. My first deep dive has been on the bow thruster, which is missing on the separate lower hull piece (as is a decal for the circled "x" above the waterline denoting it's position). Does anyone know of a source of information as to which thruster was used or have photos of the propeller? There are few photos I've been able to find that show the position, but none have quite enough detail to know what to fabricate. The below crop of this photo on SeaForces' D 554 ITS Caio Duilio page shows that perhaps the "tube" has straight sections fore and aft with some bars mounted to offer some protection from having large objects sucked in during operations:



If it's a straight shaft it *should* be fairly easy to clamp the lower hull to a wood block to align it on it's side and drill through, however flattened surfaces would complicate things a bit.

Next question - what would be good paint colors to use for modern French and Italian Navies? Sovereign Hobbies has a discontinued WWII Regia Marina line of paints but nothing for modern colors for either. I do like to try and capture the subtle differences of different Navys' versions of Haze Gray and it would be nice to start with a basic understanding of the two navys' systems at present.

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Tracy White -Researcher@Large

"Let the evidence guide the research. Do not have a preconceived agenda which will only distort the result."
-Barbara Tuchman

I wouldn't call this authoritative in terms of detail, but this french site on ships named Forbin shows the bow thrusters on the propulsion page (direct link) and on the "Ship's Drawings" pages.

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Tracy White -Researcher@Large

"Let the evidence guide the research. Do not have a preconceived agenda which will only distort the result."
-Barbara Tuchman

To add to the list of 1/700 kits available, Ostrich Hobby makes both Andrea Doria and Caio Duilio as separate kits (resin & PE). Most easily found on EBay.

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De quoi s'agit-il?

There is also a 1/700 kit of the Italian version by Delphis (currently not available, but I think that they plan to make all their kits available again):
https://www.delphismodels.it/prodotto/m-m-i-classe-orizzonte-andrea-doria/

I had built that one long time ago:



There were also multiple kits of the French version, the Forbin class, in 1/700: Dodo Models, BigBlueBoy and Veteran Models.

/edit: yes, Veteran Models:
http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery/ff/fr/forbin-700-hk/hk-index.html

and BigBlueBoy:
https://www.hobbyland.co.jp/blog/2017/01/11/%E3%83%93%E3%83%83%E3%82%B0%E3%83%96%E3%83%AB%E3%83%BC%E3%83%9C%E3%83%BC%E3%82%A4%E3%80%81%E3%83%8B%E3%82%B3%E3%83%A2%E3%83%87%E3%83%AB%E3%80%81def%E3%83%A2%E3%83%87%E3%83%AB%E6%96%B0%E8%A3%BD/

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