Airfix 1/72 B5N2 Kate CarDiv5 Shokaku WIP

I do love the scenes in the Japanese war movies where the Kates are in the hangar decks. You have chosen a great subject!

modelcrazy

There is a picture of EI-311 landing on the Shokaku in April 1942 but can't seem to locate it right now.

My boo boo, the pictures I was thinking of were of the Kate AI-301 in April 42 on the Akagi....which is my next build. The 1/72 Hase Kit. Looking through that kit, there a world of diffrence. I far prefer the Airfix kit.

That'll be totally cool to have it armed and in stored position.  You always come up with some neat ideas!  I love it!

Toshi

Stick and Toshi, thanks.

Stick, yeah I love those scenes as well. That scene in Midway where they replaced the torps with bombs and back again.

Toshi, I try. I like the unusual scene. In fact, right after I done with this one I'm building the 1/72 Hasegawa kit with bombs with wings extended and put them both side by side on a base to show the different configurations. I would like to get a Japanese flight deck section to put them on..

modelcrazy

Stick and Toshi, thanks.

Stick, yeah I love those scenes as well. That scene in Midway where they replaced the torps with bombs and back again.

Toshi, I try. I like the unusual scene. In fact, right after I done with this one I'm building the 1/72 Hasegawa kit with bombs with wings extended and put them both side by side on a base to show the different configurations. I would like to get a Japanese flight deck section to put them on..

 

Toshi

modelcrazy

Stick, yeah I love those scenes as well. That scene in Midway where they replaced the torps with bombs and back again. 

found this for ya... it actually originally came from a 1960s vintage Japanese movie.

Ooo, what movie?

When it was released in Japan it was called Hawaii Midway Sea Battle, or something like that. It was dubbed into English and released as "I Bombed Pearl Harbor". Most of the Japanese carrier scenes in Midway, are lifted from this movie. Most of the rest are from "Tora!Tora!Tora!". It mainly centers on Hiryu from Pearl Harbor to Midway and Toshiro Mifune plays the role of Admiral Yamaguchi. I was able to get ahold of an original Japanese DVD copy for rent a few years ago. 

I'd like to see if I can find that, maybe clips on YouTube.

I noticed, back in the 70'swhen it first came out, that Midway barrowed several scenes for other movies. 30 Seconds Over Tokyo, Tora!Tora!Tora! and apparently this one.

"Storm of the Pacific"... here is the trailer...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JPQbFDjMYmw

I love it!! I must watch this movie!

I saw one scene in the trailer where they even used AT6's as Zeros LOL.

It was not a bad movie. Definitely worth a viewing.

The special effects looked mixed. One has airplane taking off and a second or two after another plane. A bomb slash literally is as big as the entire ship. LOL. Tora Tora Tora some 10 years later really raised the bar. Still, I might want to check this movie out.

Well the effects are nowhere near as good as the recent CGI stuff in "The Eternal Zero" or "The Admiral" as far as the battle stuff goes. But considering the time when it was made, they are typical. Tora! pushed miniatures work about as far they could go for ship & sea type work. Now if they could only get the storyline and script work right for a Midway movie.

Midway will always be a tough one. The elements of the battle were spread about as far apart as one could imagine.

That trailer was pretty intriguing. I've heard of that movie before, but never have seen it.

It provokes a pretty clear picture that the IJN certainly was a pretty formidable operation, and it was a pretty fine line one way or the other how June 4-6 would go.

The Japanese made a series of fundamentally risky to poor choices, and those came back to hurt them.

Probably first and foremost was trying to both launch a surprise attack and project overwhelming force at the same time. That in turn required risking irreplaceable resources.

The IJN in 1942 was indeed a formidable force. In the first six months, with one notable exception, they vanquished all navies that fought them. After Midway, they gave as good as they got, if not more in nearly every action. They just could not replace their losses as quickly as we could after that point. Yamamoto's prophecy of running wild for six months to a year and after that no promises, was very much on target. 

I can't hardly believe the details in this tiny kit. Such nice work there, Steve. Love it.

BK

Great work Steve. Unfortunately, all that great work will be hard to see once the canopy is attached.

Stik or anyone else, what was that movie about the yamato? I've seen some trailers and it looked pretty well done. Sorry to hijack your Kate Steve. I love the subject and will try to stay on topic.

Thanks Tigerman.

You haven't hijacked anything. I enjoy a little diversity and off topic in my WIP build threads. It keeps thing moving and interesting and keeps people coming back. 

tigerman

Great work Steve. Unfortunately, all that great work will be hard to see once the canopy is attached.

Stik or anyone else, what was that movie about the yamato? I've seen some trailers and it looked pretty well done. Sorry to hijack your Kate Steve. I love the subject and will try to stay on topic.

 

japanese war movies are within six degrees of separation of the build topic... Lol!

The Yamamoto movie is called "The Admiral". I think that is next one that I need to find for my movie library. 

Modelcrazy, the Kate looks outstanding.  I keep hearing more and more great things about Airfix's new kits.  

I have to see these movies.  I've never heard of them, and I know I'm missing some good stuff.  

stikpusher

 

 

tigerman

Great work Steve. Unfortunately, all that great work will be hard to see once the canopy is attached.

Stik or anyone else, what was that movie about the yamato? I've seen some trailers and it looked pretty well done. Sorry to hijack your Kate Steve. I love the subject and will try to stay on topic.

 

 

 

 

japanese war movies are within six degrees of separation of the build topic... Lol!

The Yamamoto movie is called "The Admiral". I think that is next one that I need to find for my movie library. 

 

No, I was thinking of the movie about the last sorte of the battleship Yamato. They built a pretty awesome replica of her if I'm correct and the death scene gave me some incite to how badly outnumbered the IJN was at the end of the war.

Yamato... Yamamoto... the Yamato movie is just that. And yes, they had quite the set. The CGI of the aircraft in that one is not quite as good as the other movies. But it's worth watching. That one I do have in my movie library . 

Where do you find these movies?

There is a Japanese "mall" near my home that has a good stock of Japanese movies. Some I originally learned of thru a hobby shop, now closed, that used to show all sorts of war movies during business hours. Or I ran across them on YouTube or IMDb.   

I'll take another look at YouTube but haven't had much luck finding it full length.

I would also really like to find The Eternal Zero. I have see clips of it in YouTube and it looks good. Of course it will show the dogfighting a little skewed but did you see Red Tails? talk about a little skewed.

Continuing on with the Kate. I attached the fuselage to the wings and vert stabilizers to the fuse. The only complaint I have with the kit, which is easily remedied with a little trimming and sanding, is the attachment point of the wings and stabilizers to the parts tree. The attachment points are big and invade on the surfaces. But like I said these are easily remedied.

If you decide to build this kit, be aware of the gauge at the bombardier's position. The panel it is attached to came loose while installing the fuselage because the gauge slips into a slot on the fuse. This was easily fixed bit reinstalling the panel after the fuse was on.

The gaps at the wings and stabilizers are very small and the fit is tremendous IMO.

I really like this kit. Good on ya Airfix!

Another good lookin' 1/72nd scale build. Looks good so far Steve. I'm not a fan of decaled instruments but I've gotta say that if I were to build such a small scaled aircraft that I would probably do the same thing. Watching................

Thanks Mustang, I'm not either but in this case Airfix didn't leave me much choice. The IP was a flat piece of plastic.

Thanks for following along.