Reviews : Trumpeter USS Vincennes CA44 Heavy Cruiser

Like with the other 1/700 Trumpeter kit's from the '00s, I'd rate this ship as a solid 'Good'. The details aren't the best I've seen on a 1/700 ship and I encountered a number of issues along the way, but as a whole the kit is pretty solid. The two main issues I encountered along the way were related to the hull and bridge assembly. In the case of the hull, the upper and lower pieces were mismatched, with the lower hull being slightly too long at the rear, requiring a decent bit of sanding to grind down enough that it'd fit properly while keeping the pronounced armored belt that spans the middle of the ship on both pieces properly aligned. In the case of the bridge, getting the different levels to fit together was a pain and it took quite a bit of finagling and glue to get them to properly stack on top of each other, though I'm willing to concede that this could partly be down to my relative lack of building experience at the time when I put the kit together. Another issue that popped out to me is that on at least one occasion the instructions were clearly incorrect (Step 9; put the 1.1-inch Chicago Pianos on the stern instead of the 40mm Bofors mounts as the Vincennes never carried that type of weapon), and I believe this is due to them reusing some pages from the other myriad of 1/700 New Orleans-class cruiser kits Trumpeter put out, so there may be more errors I didn't catch. Overall though, in spite of those issues, I'm still quite satisfied with the final result. The main thing holding me back from a 4-star rating is the price point, which I personally feel is excessive considering the listed price of other 1/700 Trumpeter kits of similar quality from the same decade.

Finished building this one as part of a collection of the New Orleans class cruisers. Very similar to building the USS San Francisco by Trumpter also. This one of the ships lost in sea battles around Savo Island in Nov 1942. Used an all Navy blue paint scheme on ship in Measure 2 camo scheme for time period.