Just a quick note to all of you that have bought, or thinking of buying one of the Aoshima 1/350 Takao-class (either Takao, Atago, Chokai, or Maya) heavy cruiser models. As you know (or should know, or will know soon enough when you open that box!), while the rest of the model is really quite good, the molded turrets for these are really, really bad! On the actual ships, the turrets had a sort of thin steel 'sheathing,' almost a spaced-armor effect like some German tanks, which was designed to shield the turrets and their crews from the fierce tropical sun. In any case, these sheathing plates were just welded together, which formed a very thin line where each of the weld lines were. In fact, it's often hard to make out at all, unless your photo shows the turret in severely weathered or damaged condition. Anyways, for some reason, Aoshima tried to mold these weld lines into the turrets, and the result is the most ridiculous out-of-scale raised waffle-pattern you ever saw! Therefore, the only thing to do is get a hold of one of these after-market kit upgrades to replace the turrets, or think about (or lose!) breakfast every time you look at the ones that come with the kit....
Until now, the only replacements available that I knew of came as part of a general PE upgrade, and cost almost as much as the kit itself (Lionroar), but now, VOYAGER MODEL produces a set of EXCELLENT replacement resin turrets WITH brass-turned barrels AND all the photo-etch stuff applicable to the turrets ONLY, and all for about $25 (and I got mine on Ebay for only$19!). Just the faintest hint of the weld lines, just as they ought to be. So for those of you that are happy with the rest of the Takao model (and I really am!) and don't want to spend an arm and a leg for a lot of 'super-detailing' you may not really want, I can recommend the Voyager replacement turrets as an excellent alternative!