The Nichimo kit represents the ship at the time of Leyte Gulf. The kit is pretty old, dating from the mid-to-late 70s, and has numerous inaccuracies. I'm assuming you don't have the time or inclination to address all of the corrections, but here is a build by an expert modeler in Japan that you can use as a guide to what would be required to do so, and then you can pick and choose which ones you feel like incorporating and which ones are going to be too time consuming.
In general, just using the GMM set, you can come up with an attractive build. Anything above it would be useful, but to get all the way to perfection, it would require something along the lines of the sample, which is beyond most of us mere mortals. I think Mr. Bucklefoot Al can add additional comments since he's actually built this kit.
Thank you Dave for the pointers. If you don't mind me asking, what is the "sample?"
I know this is a bit of a challenge with the Nichimo kit, but I think its doable. Reading through this thread and the linked website, there isn't anything seriously wrong with the model. There seems to be shaping issues with some features of the model (specifically on the superstructure) but most aren't serious. Alot of the smaller details the Japanese modeler included, I believe can replicate.
If you don't mind I'll start putting up some in progress build photos when my camera gets fixed.
Doug - Can you tell me if this "Black Deck Yamato" model of a few pages back is the 1/500 Fujimi with the updated features? Sure looks like it - especially the sailor figures - but there is nothing for reference so I can't tell what size it is.
Neu - I think by "sample" Doug means the kit built up by the Japanese modeler linked above. While I totally agree that the level of detail the Japanese modeler shows on his kit is WAY beyond my meager skills, I built up the 1945 version of the Nichimo 1/200 Yamato. If you're gonna go that route it will require a bit more work to create the additional AA turrets and deck shields but in the end it will be worth it. I believe you can actually order additional AA turrets and guns from Nichimo directly but I did not know that when i built my kit, so I made moulds and cast the extra AA turrets out of resin. Time consuming but fun. Unfortunately I no longer have the moulds.
Also, there is an ebay seller that has produced an entire series of 1/200 Yamato upgrades, INCLUDING casting in resin the three main turrets (with a tiny bit of help from yours truly). His name is Harry Ohanian and his own Nichimo Yamato is on loan to the US Naval Museum.
The turrets on the original Nichimo are horribly inaccurate (too small and too narrow up front), so whether you build the Leyte or the Okinawa versions, you need to get Harry's turrets - you can fit the metal barrels right in. (On my Nichimo I used the brass Konishi turrets from Japan, twice as expensive by themselves as the Nichimo kit and a bit too long; But that was before Harry cast his own custom resin turrets - boy it could have saved me a bit of cash if I had known he was working on them!)
Here is a link to my Nichimo build-up with a detailed list of customizations:
i just got the lionroar set in the mail and gosh it is a visual orgasm in terms of detail!! so many parts!!!
unfortunately, several of my 25 mm resin trips snapped in the mail so looks like im gonna have to swap them w/ the OEM parts... owell... at least the rest of the set is great! gotta start ripping off some of the 1st set parts
as mentioned in the review you do have to do a lot of cutting though! fortunately i got a wood deck to cover the holes!
Hello everyone. Vlad, I'm pretty sure that both of the black deck kits we've seen are the new 1/700 Fujimi mold, rather than the 1/500 kit. The give-away is the slightly over-sized capped portholes on the hull. Regarding the Trumpeter resin triple AA guns - these were too long to begin with. The gun barrels should actually only extend a little bit past the louvered shutters on the front of the turret. I think the mistake everyone makes is in assuming that these turrets contain fully mechanized guns. I think they are actually more in the way of 360 degree shields, and inside are the same triple mounts as are seen in open areas elsewhere on the deck. Hence, most of the gun barrel is actually inside, and the crew actually pulled up the shutters to see out prior to manning the gun. Hence, to be realistic, the guns would actually be horizontal when not in use and the shutters are closed. Neu, we look forward to your pictures, but I'd suggest you start a new string over in the picture posting section. That way, you can have your progress and narrative continuous rather than broken up by other posters here. I'm planning to do the same myself. Right now, I have the 1/350 kit water-lined and have built up a new deck using grooved styrene sheeting. I'm in the process of drilling out locater holes in the capped portholes prior to sanding them all off and replacing with PE parts. Its been a lot of work and I haven't even glued one piece yet. Cheers / Doug
Most enclosed gun mounts of that era up to about 5" consisted of a 360 degree shield or gun house covering a basically normal semi-stand alone mount. The Japanese 25mm enclosed mounts (as well as Yamato's enclosed 5" mounts) were rather large because rather than providing the mount with a snug fitting completely enclosed protective box like other countries do, the Japanese elected use a rotating dome that fits over the normal protective gun tub. Hence the 25mm and 5" gun shields had to be large enough to cover the tub. This partly accounts for why so little of the 25mm barrels protrude.
I believe Japanese 25mm triple enclosed mounts were mechanized in that training and elevation were power driven and can be remotely controlled from the director. Open 25mm triple mounts without the shield is AFAIK lacking in powered traverse and elevation.
Assessing the impact of new area rug under modeling table.
bucketfoot-al wrote:
Also, there is an ebay seller that has produced an entire series of 1/200 Yamato upgrades, INCLUDING casting in resin the three main turrets (with a tiny bit of help from yours truly). His name is Harry Ohanian and his own Nichimo Yamato is on loan to the US Naval Museum.
The turrets on the original Nichimo are horribly inaccurate (too small and too narrow up front), so whether you build the Leyte or the Okinawa versions, you need to get Harry's turrets - you can fit the metal barrels right in. (On my Nichimo I used the brass Konishi turrets from Japan, twice as expensive by themselves as the Nichimo kit and a bit too long; But that was before Harry cast his own custom resin turrets - boy it could have saved me a bit of cash if I had known he was working on them!)
Here is a link to my Nichimo build-up with a detailed list of customizations:
Truk Islands, 1943 ... a newly discovered archive sheds light on the first battle that Yamato participated in ... so secret that it was not mentioned in the official reports of the war .... a battle against - an 80-meter long lightning-bolt-firing SEA MONSTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!
OK. I know. The potential, with a proper budget, was definitely there. Unfortunately, the proper budget was not there, and what could have been a Kaiju film classic underwhelms - at least based on the reviews and the trailer - the film has never been released with English subtitles.
Here is a link to the official film site and the trailer (click on trailer in the lower right.)
WARNING: Yamato is rendered solely in pretty-cheap-looking CGI, (while Reigo, the monster, is the usual man-in-a-suit we've come to expect from Kaiju films.)
By a pure coincidence, just this morning Turner Classic Movies showed a 1965 Otto Preminger film starring John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, Henry Fonda, and a bunch of actors who later went on to TV stardom. I had it on in the background and boy was I surprised two-thirds of the way through the film!
In the climactic battle sequence towards the end, the battleship commanded by "Admiral" Wayne is sunk by Yamato, with Wayne being the only survivor - after 3 weeks he wakes from a coma thinking he'll be court-martialed for losing 7 ships, but turns out the Yamato retreated afterwards and the Navy captured the Japanese airfield on a forward island (sort of a combination of the Leyte Gulf and Guadalcanal scenarios.)
And, I must add, for a 1965 film, Yamato was pretty darn accurate (no real closeup shots, but lots of waterline shots of the model shot in slo-mo.) And although the model was accurate, when glimpsed through the clouds by Douglas (flying a B-25) he describes it as having "twelve 18-inch guns" and Wayne retorts about Yamato being "80,000 tons."
Just think - John Wayne defeated by Yamato. And I had no idea this picture was out there.*
*As an aside, when Rob Lundren finishes his research and publishes his findings about the Battle of Leyte Gulf (which I have previewed) you may be surprised to see how the real Yamato performed in a similar battle ....but til then "mum's the word" ... HINT: The fictional scene in this picture is a lot closer to the truth than decades long "conventional wisdom" - that was not based on a review of all of the available documentary and combat motion picture evidence ...
bucketfoot-al
Creator of the Yamato/Musashi Archive Photo Gallery https://battleshipyamato.com
dulce et decorum est pro patria mori
In 2011 a DVD will be released that (from the description) purports to have some 60 minutes of motion picture film from a recently discovered secret Japanese archive, said film supposedly being of Yamato and other Japanese battleships.
I have already ordered a copy, but recently the release date has been pushed back by 6 months.
I know very well about "when something sounds too good to be true ....", so I am not getting my hopes up too high ...
rest assured, when the DVD is released I plan to screen it and report back.
You can find it on Amazon (as a preorder) - just search "Battleship Yamato" and the 2-DVD set will pop up. They recently deleted the description when the release date was pushed back, so you won't see it in the new listing ...
bucketfoot-al
Creator of the Yamato/Musashi Archive Photo Gallery https://battleshipyamato.com
dulce et decorum est pro patria mori
Hey Vlad, while its always possible there is additional film of ships like Yamato, I think we would have already heard about it from other sources in Japan before it got repackaged for an American commercial DVD release. The only "secret" archives I know of are our National ones, since most anything relating to the IJN got confiscated by US officials at the end of the war. With thousands of boxes of stuff to go through, I'm sure we'll be finding stuff for the next hundred years, like that B-29 aerial photo found a couple of years ago. I think the DVD is mostly going to be prewar footage of other IJN battleships, with a few stills of Yamato thrown in to justify the come-on title. There ARE a few animated CGI DVDs of Yamato (not the Scifi one) available in Japan, but I don't know if any of them are worth getting. Probably similar to the History channel stuff - 5-10 minutes worth of CGI and a lot of talking head "experts" discussing the ship in a static environment.
I looked at the amazon listing and the supporting cast is listed as "Starring Nagato, Fuso, Kongo and Musashi". I have to agree with what Doug Hallet says.
All good points, gentlemen ... as I said, I am well-aware that "if its too good to be true"..... so no need for any of you to drop any $$$ since I've already done so...as I said, stay tuned - I'll review it once it comes out next Summer ...
bucketfoot-al
Creator of the Yamato/Musashi Archive Photo Gallery https://battleshipyamato.com
dulce et decorum est pro patria mori
bucketfoot-al wrote:And, I must add, for a 1965 film, Yamato was pretty darn accurate (no real closeup shots, but lots of waterline shots of the model shot in slo-mo.) And although the model was accurate, when glimpsed through the clouds by Douglas (flying a B-25) he describes it as having "twelve 18-inch guns" and Wayne retorts about Yamato being "80,000 tons."
Just think - John Wayne defeated by Yamato. And I had no idea this picture was out there.*
*As an aside, when Rob Lundren finishes his research and publishes his findings about the Battle of Leyte Gulf (which I have previewed) you may be surprised to see how the real Yamato performed in a similar battle ....but til then "mum's the word" ... HINT: The fictional scene in this picture is a lot closer to the truth than decades long "conventional wisdom" - that was not based on a review of all of the available documentary and combat motion picture evidence ...
IIRC, the overhead shot was of a SOuth Dakota class battleship. Right number of main turrets and funnels, but that's about it.
When is Lundren publishing his results?
Assessing the impact of new area rug under modeling table.
Doug Hallet wrote:Hey Vlad, while its always possible there is additional film of ships like Yamato, I think we would have already heard about it from other sources in Japan before it got repackaged for an American commercial DVD release. The only "secret" archives I know of are our National ones, since most anything relating to the IJN got confiscated by US officials at the end of the war. With thousands of boxes of stuff to go through, I'm sure we'll be finding stuff for the next hundred years, like that B-29 aerial photo found a couple of years ago. I think the DVD is mostly going to be prewar footage of other IJN battleships, with a few stills of Yamato thrown in to justify the come-on title. There ARE a few animated CGI DVDs of Yamato (not the Scifi one) available in Japan, but I don't know if any of them are worth getting. Probably similar to the History channel stuff - 5-10 minutes worth of CGI and a lot of talking head "experts" discussing the ship in a static environment.
I would not be surprised by discovery of Yamato photos from the personal photo albums of former Japanese servicemen. There was one discovered a few years back of a personal photo of a Japanese lieutenant commander in tropical uniform leaning on the railing of his ship. Behind him can fairly clearly be seen the stern of the Yamato minus the aircraft crane. Appearently the crane was unshipped for some reason. There was also another fairly close up personal photo of the Yamato moored to a bouy, taken from a low eye point onboard a launch just as the launch rounded the bow of a another ship, probably a cruiser, moored close to and just ahead of the Yamato.
Finally there was a photo I saw once that I've been trying to find again ever since. It was another close up taken from a launch. This one was very close up, and show the section of the hull around the boat hangers outboard of the 3rd turret. The photo was close enough to show weld seams on the boat hanger.
Assessing the impact of new area rug under modeling table.
I don't know when Rob will be done with his Leyte Gulf paper, but the Yamato draft is pretty much complete from what I've seen.
I know that he has at least one more trip to make to the National Archives. Combat motion picture film was taken from several of the Taffy 3 carriers and he has reviewed it (I've seen lots of stills.) It is remarkable.
[As an aside, USN gun camera footage of the attacks on Yamato and Musashi in 1944 and 1945 existed - many if not most of the battle stills on my website are from that footage. Whether it can still be found and if it is still in good enough condition for the Archives to allow researchers to screen it and order copies to be made is another side-project that Rob will be checking into. After we talked and he screened the photos on my site he commented that it appeared that there was a lot more gun camera footage than he had thought. Getting our hands on it would be quite a coup.]
More than that I don't want to say til the paper is released. Keep in mind that this is Rob's "second job" and that just having the IJN records translated has been a real bear because he's had to wait for the translators to complete their work before being able to move on.
BTW, Rob's website (on which the paper will be published) is at:
owell... at least the rest of the set is great! gotta start ripping off some of the 1st set parts 
