Blue Devil Destroyer

i built the blue devil, by lindberg, which can be motorized i believe, but i thought it was a nice kit to build.i cant recall the scale but it was big.there is definitely alot of potential to detail the heck out of it.id recommend it.

The only thing that the Lindberg Blue Devil has going for it is it's size, price and the fact that it is vaguely Fletcher-like. Can you build a decent model out of it? Sure, if you are willing to do a lot of work. Here is an article on doing just that:

http://www.steelnavy.com/BDFletcher.htm

But I have to tell you, you would be better off building the Tamiya kit if you want a nice model of the DD, or stepping up to the Dean's Marine model of the Fletcher in 1/96 scale (which also need some work, but far less than the Lindberg Kit) A lot more money, but far better outcome with this mixed media kit.

If you insist on building the Lindberg model, there are some resin upgrade kits availalbe from Dreadnaught Model Shipyards. I am not sure of any photoetch, as the scale does not lend itself for much of that, except for things like radars and similar structures; photoetch railing does not look good in this scale, IMHO.

For links to above mentioned companies, see the link page off of my website, Warship Models Underway.

HTH

Kurt

Well from that link it looks like it might be fun for a first R\C attempt but not for a serious display, be better off getting a set of plans and build ing from scratch!

As I'm currently building this kit I can't resist commenting, though my comments will probably be similar to what most other modellers will tell you about it.

If you enjoy scratchbuilding detail parts (like I do) and aren't too bothered by the inaccurate hull shape (which is hard to fix short of scratchbuilding a new one, in which case you might as well build the whole ship from scratch), then this kit is a highly affordable way to build a large-scale model of a WW2 destroyer.

If you don't like scratchbuilding then don't touch this kit with a very long barge-pole; with the amount it will cost for photo-etch parts, replacement armament, etc., you could buy the Deans Marine 1/96 or ISW resin 1/192 kit, both of which are vastly superior. And even then there are many parts of the Lindberg kit which can't really be fixed other than with scratchbuilding, such as the over-thick shields on the AA gun mounts and the totally inaccurate superstructure sidewall detail.

As other people have said, though, for a cheap starter R/C warship it's fine, even built "out of the box"; from a distance it looks just like a Fletcher, the problem is when you look at it up close :D

Possibly the best choice for an injection-moulded, large-scale kit of a WW2 warship is the Revell/Matchbox 1/72 Flower-class corvette (I built this one earlier this year) Whilst this also needs a lot of extra detail (either scratch, AM or both) to produce a decent end result, the basic shapes of the parts are all correct.

Trumpeter also produce a wide range of Chinese destroyers and frigates (some of which are ex-Soviet types) in 1/200 scale. These aren't up to Tamiya quality standards, and are all post-war subjects, but they're affordable and are a lot better than the Lindberg Fletcher in terms of detail in accuracy.