Ahoy!This model has already been completed.
I have decided to publish this build in two parts.
-The first part here in the WIP section will contain a record of construction with a brief overview of technique.
-The second part is intended to be a gallery of the completed model with history, areas of interest, and miscellaneous commentary.
I do not plan of releasing all related content immediately, so this will read like a more traditional write as building happens post. My intention is to be able to provide more regular content updates independent of building delays. Depending on how well this method is received and how much fun I have in writing it, there may be more. Anyway, enough blather.
In 2012, Trumpeter released the first plastic offerings of a Littorio class battleship in both 1:700 and 1:350 scale. Both kits were of the Roma, the first of the second pair of a four ship class. The Roma was ten feet (~3 meters) longer to incorporate a less wet bow design and a significantly improved bridge configuration. There were also a number of minor alterations and improvements that make tooling an accurate Roma a separate proposition from a Littorio or a Vittorio Veneto kit.
Sean Hert was kind enough to review this kit here on ModelWarships: http://www.modelwarships.com/reviews/sh ... eview.html
As I did not record any sprue shots or virgin plastic, please refer to his excellent review for specific details of the unbuilt kit.
From my experiences with Trumpeter, I tend to characterize their kits into five generations:
1 - repops and copies of prexisting kits.
2 - first generation of their own tools in the early 2000s.
3 - second generation tool in the late 2000s.
4 - the first wave of truly superlative kits in terms of engineering.
5 - the last few years of converging their technical capabilities with improving levels of accuracy.
I consider the Roma to be very much a transitional kit between the 3rd and 4th waves of kits. Fit was generally quite good, but some components had some excess play, and there were in my view some hallmark Trumpeter build frustrations. There are also a number of inaccurate shapes, more on that later, not a concern of mine for this build. The 350 Roma is a contemporary of the 1:200 Arizona which I possess, there are a great many things alike about the two kits. What is true for one, is also true for the other, although the Roma is a much, much more accurate kit in terms of hull form.
My primary reference material was Bagnasco and De Toro's The Littorio Class from USNI Press. A superlative and comprehensive work, I recommend it heartily for anyone with an interest in these gorgeous ships. The provide a fairly decent set of drawings to work with although not as comprehensive as I would have liked, particularly with regards to rigging. I will be relying a great deal on these two in my final gallery when I write about the prototype.
I have 178 photographs of the build to work with so let's launch with the next post.
Applied rough pencil guides for the eventual candy cane recognition stripes. Also shows railing faintly.
