CSS Alabama

I bought this kit when it has seen a limited reissue in 2000 but I knew it before, one of our master modelers in istanbul was building from his stockpile. I viewed the buildup during my frequent visits to his atelier but tragically, he suddenly deceased before finishing it and after his passing-away; one of his friends took the completed hull and other parts and I never had the chance to see it again. At that time I was a 16 year old college boy whose fascination with the american civil war had just started and I was totally mesmerised by this dashing raider after reading the excellent article about the discovery of her wreck in national geographic (november 1994 issue it was, as I remember). Revell's kit was so detailed, big and beautiful that I never thinked about the possibilty of her being inaccurate As Mr. Tilley said, I only became aware of this after reading the magnificent article in steelnavy. But I really don't bother, This model looks like Alabama in her contemporary pictures and gravures and that's just enought to me. Only point I can't accept in the are the guns which are totally useless. But I'm a fortunate man, I found a rather simple but useful plan of Alabama in İstanbul ship modeler's club and that has very nice drawings of Alabama's guns. When I'll built my ship, I will do the guns from scratch and I'll have a very nice showpiece in the end.

Thanks for the info and links.  They are good reading.  I think I'll go ahead and get the model when it comes out.  One of the reasons I like it (besides from living in the South) is that it's a big kit.  I like large scale models.   I built the 1:96 scale Constitution and I used real wood strips for the deck which came out really nice over the molded deck grain.  These strips are available from Model Expo and can be split into narrow strips to more fit the scale.

I do like accuracy,  but I can live with some inaccuries if it means having a large kit inside a glass display to impress my friends and company.

I think this is one of the many cases in this part of the hobby where the quality of the kit really depends on what the builder wants from it. 

It is indeed a modified version of the Kearsarge kit.  The latter does a pretty good job of representing the real Kearsarge - as she appeared in the 1880s.  (She'd been modified fairly significantly since the Civil War.  The article on the Steel Navy site does a terrific job of explaining the changes - and the various detail problems with the kit.)  The Alabama kit has a different hull - but not much different.  It uses the same deck components, and many of the other parts are common to both kits.

In Revell's defense, at the time the kit originally appeared (in the early sixties) not much was known about the real Alabama.  (Experts on the subject at the time could take issue with some of the kit's features, but it looked pretty much like the drawings and paintings of the ship that appeared in most readily-available sources.)  But during the past forty years a surprising amount of information about that ship has come to light.  We now have access to some pretty good plans, a builder's model, quite a bit of good documentary information, and even a couple of photographs that show the exterior of the ship.  (Even in the sixties two on-deck shots had been published frequently.) 

In 2002 the Naval Institute Press published a book called C.S.S. Alabama:  Anatomy of a Confederate Raider, by Andrew Bowcock.  It's a remarkable publication, containing all the known photos and artwork and a set of detailed plans.  Here's a link to it:  http://www.usni.org/webstore/shopexd.asp?id=18770 .

The plans, photos, and other material in that book make it pretty clear that the ship differed pretty significantly from the Revell kit.  A Civil War buff wanting a really accurate model of the Alabama probably won't find the kit satisfactory.  The fact remains, though, that it's a big, impressive, fun model.  Such things as the gun mounts, the gear for hoisting the propeller (working!) and the delicate "bridge" spanning the bulwarks amidships are just about unique in the plastic ship kit business.  And the crew figures (recycled from the Cutty Sark, but who cares) are wonderful.  It may not qualify as a genuine scale model, but for Olde Phogies like me it's a terrific exercise in nostalgia.

Despite a few historical inaccurate details, it is a pretty easy, and fun, kit to build.

Scott

There is a great comparison of the CSS Alabama and USS Kearsarge over on the Steel Navy website:
http://www.steelnavy.com/Alabama&Kearsarge.htm

Basically, the Alabama kit is reputed to be derived from the Kearsarge molds, so it isn't particularly accurate.