The Ship Model Forum

Hello Everyone,

Recently I received some of Master Model 1/350 USN Mk13 Early War Torpedoes. I wanted to share with everyone my impressions.

These torpedoes come 10 to a pack to match Trumpeter's plane packs. The main portion of the torpedo is turned brass. The photo etch has the fins, two propellers, and a weapon dolly for each torpedo. Good clear instructions for assembly.

On the turned brass there is a slight panel line showing where the warhead meets the weapon casing. The over all detail is great.

The fins fit onto a locator pin at the back of the torpedo and are folded into place. This did take me some time to figure out how to do it without breaking a fin off, as the part is very small and delicate. The propellers then connect to the same locator pin after the fins. Where these are delicate, having them any larger would have made them out of scale. As long as you take your time with them and attach the fins to the torpedo first, then bend them into place it went really smooth for me. This is the only area I deviated from the instructions.

The dolly is relatively simple to fold and looks great.

Over all impressions:
Great after market accessory anywhere you need an early war USN Mk13 torpedo. Not expensive either. The only downside is mounting them to a plane you have to fabricate the mount, which I did on TBD using very small pieces of sheet styrene very quickly and it really added a lot to the TBD I was building at the time. The also fit the dimensions listed in the USN ordnance book perfectly in scale.

Master Model also made a late war version. I have not tried these but they look to be every bit as good from what I have seen.

_________________
Gabriel