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? about the revell 1/542 scale battle of midway carrier

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  • Member since
    May 2003
  • From: Greenville, NC
Posted by jtilley on Saturday, August 19, 2006 7:46 AM

Well, here's what Dr. Graham's book has to say about this one (in its original, 1967 issue under the name Enterprise):

"H-378 USS Enterprise 'Big E'                   1967-72         1/485                $20-30

Gray plastic.  Decals.  Includes twenty SBD dive bombers Scale Modeler (March 1968, 63) declared that the model did not do justice to this important subject.  It faulted the kit for poor detail and part fit.  Reissued as:  H-376 Hornet (1968); H-383 Yorktown (1968); H-501 Midway Carrier (1976); 2556 Enterprise (1979)."

The dollar figures are Dr. Graham's estimate of how much the kit normally draws on the collector's market.  I'm not sure where the figure for the scale comes from.  The book's coverage stops in 1979; I know the kit has been issued at least once since then.

I was never a fan of the old Scale Modeler magazine, but this time it hit the nail on the proverbial head.  Even by 1967 standards this kit was pretty crude.  I think the basic shapes were ok, but it had scarcely any detail; the 20mm guns, for example, were blobs molded integrally with the catwalks.  And the reissues under different ship names ignored the quite visible differences between the three ships (the configurations of the tripod masts, the anti-aircraft armament, the bridge structures, the flight deck outline, etc.).  If I remember correctly, the Yorktown and Hornet versions had different catwalks with no 20mm guns, and the Hornet had B-25s instead of SBDs.  (I don't imagine the B-25s are in the "Battle of Midway Carrier" box.) 

For some reason this historic class of ships hasn't fared well at the hands of the plastic kit manufacturers - until quite recently.  The first kit on the market, if I'm not mistaken, was a horrible one from Aurora back in the fifties.  The Revell one doesn't amount to much.  Tamiya has a 1/700 Enterprise and Hornet that are nice kits in many ways (particularly in view of their origins in the seventies), but they suffer from one major, obvious error:  their islands are way too skinny.  A few years ago Trumpeter released a 1/350 Hornet that's generally gotten excellent reviews.  (I haven't seen it in the flesh; the price is beyond me.)  And quite recently a 1/700 Hornet appeared from Trumpeter.  I haven't seen that one either, but I suspect it's pretty good.

Youth, talent, hard work, and enthusiasm are no match for old age and treachery.

  • Member since
    July 2013
Posted by DURR on Saturday, August 19, 2006 5:23 AM

i changed the title to be correct 

why you ask  cause i a dummy     i confused you all because i was confused myself   

sorryBlush [:I]

  • Member since
    November 2005
Posted by Puma on Saturday, August 19, 2006 3:28 AM
I think the last issue of the Revell Midway class was the FDR (CVB-42) in about 1995 as part of their SSP program.
The Arii kit of the USS Midway (CV-41) is from the early '80s (when I got mine) and represents the Midway in her 1978 fit shortly before the last 3 5" gun mounts were removed.   This was also right after I was transferred off of the Midway.  At this time she was very different from either of her sisters the FDR & Coral Sea.  It was also reissued by a Chinese company Kangnam.
  • Member since
    May 2003
  • From: Greenville, NC
Posted by jtilley on Friday, August 18, 2006 11:11 PM

There's a slight potential for confusion here.  I assume you're talking about the Midway-class carrier kits (i.e., the Midway, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Coral Sea).  Revell also has marketed, at various times, a kit labeled "Battle of Midway Carrier," that (supposedly) can be built to represent any of the three carriers that took part in the battle:  the Enterprise, Yorktown, and Hornet.

The Midway-class carrier may have been the first plastic aircraft carrier kit.  (I'm not sure of that; the old Lindberg Essex-class kit came out at about the same time.  My source in all this is, as usual, going to be Dr. Thomas Graham's outstanding book, Remembering Revell Model Kits.  According to Dr. Graham, the kit first appeared, with the name Frankline D. Roosevelt, in 1954.  It's been reissued many times, bearing the names of all three class members at least twice.  The most recent incarnation listed in Dr. Graham's book is 1975, but the kit may well have appeared since then; the book's coverage only goes through 1979.  Dr. Graham gives the scale as 1/547.

Revell's first ship kit was the U.S.S. Missouri, dating from 1953.  (That kit, remarkably, is still in the Revell Monogram catalog - despite the fact that by modern standards it's downright primitive and ludicrously inaccurate.  It wasn't based on the plans of the real ship, which in 1953 were still classified.)  That kit was a success.  The same year Revell issued a kit that supposedly represented the submarine Nautilus - which hadn't been launched yet.  (The Revell design was complete speculation, and missed the mark by a considerable distance.)  The following year Revell issued a series of warships that sort of rounded out its embryonic warship fleet:  a Fletcher-class destroyer, a Baltimore-class heavy cruiser, a PT boat, and the Franklin D. Roosevelt.

By 1954 standards the kit was amazing:  a big model with lots of individual 5" gunhouses, an elevator that could be slid up and down, and - most fascinating of all - a deckload of aircraft: Skyraiders, Cougars (some with their wings folded), Corsairs, and a pair of Sea Knight helicopters.  By the standards of 2006, it's just about the crudest aircraft carrier kit available (though the old Lindberg Essex-class one gives it some competition).  Like several other Revell ship kits of the period, it's actually a sort-of-waterline model (though the purchasers weren't told that).  Probably because the hull lines were classified at the time, the kit's hull has a flat bottom, sliced off a few feet below the normal waterline.  But Revell provided a pair of trestle-like stands to mount it on.  To modern, minimally-informed eyes the sight of that sliced-off hull resting on those trestles is pretty ridiculous, but in the fifties nobody seemed to notice.

I imagine it's accurate enough in its basic shapes to serve as a basis for a serious scale model, but not without a great deal of work.  This class of carriers hasn't received the attention it deserves from the kit manufacturers.  I believe one of the Japanese companies made a set of Midway-class ships (in a later configuration, with angled decks) on 1/800 scale a few years ago; my understanding is that they're considerably better than the Revell one, but hardly state-of-the-art.  So far as I know, those are the only other plastic Midway-class kits.

Hope that helps a little - though I'm afraid it's not very inspiring.

Youth, talent, hard work, and enthusiasm are no match for old age and treachery.

  • Member since
    July 2013
? about the revell 1/542 scale battle of midway carrier
Posted by DURR on Friday, August 18, 2006 10:24 PM

what can anyone tell me about it

i know all the good/bad about their other (modern ) carriers of that scale

is it a (newer) tooling than the others (read a Bit more accurate) or not

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