Trumpeter 1/700 USS Astoria By Marc Flake

History

The USS Astoria was one of seven New Orleans-class cruisers, which were considered to be the best of all the USN pre-war Treaty Cruisers. This class was the direct ancestor for all subsequent WW2 USN cruisers — the Brooklyns, Wichita, Clevelands and Baltimores. They were noteworthy for their protection compared to previous heavy cruisers as deck and belt armor were increased in thickness and the barbettes strengthened to withstand 8-inch gunfire.

There was a lot of variation between members of this class. For example, the New Orleans built with a different superstructure and main gun turrets than all the rest. The Quincy and Vincennes were similar to each other, but had a shorter forecastle resulting in the main armament being rearranged. The middle four – Astoria, San Francisco, Tuscaloosa and Minneapolis -- were somewhat similar, with some differences in their superstructures.

In 1939, the USS Astoria carried the remains of the former Japanese Ambassador to the United States, the late Saito Hirosi, to his home nation. She was part of Lexington’s escort to reinforce Midway on Dec. 7, helped defend Lexington and Yorktown at the Coral Sea, helped defend Yorktown at Midway and served as ADM Frank Jack Fletcher’s flagship for Task Force 17 after Yorktown was sunk. After helping to cover the landings of US Marines on Guadalcanal in August, she was lost with two of her sisters, Quincy and Vincennes, at the Battle of Savo Island.

Kit

My first reaction on opening the box and looking at all the sprues was that Trumpeter is really setting the bar a lot higher for injection-molded kits. The detail is nice and crisp throughout. It has a total of 196 parts, most in a light gray plastic, including 2 hull-type parts in red and 10 airplane parts in clear plastic. A set of national flag and jack decals are provided as well as markings for the aircraft. The sheet includes hull numbers for Astoria, Tuscaloosa, New Orleans and Minneapolis. Unfortunately, New Orleans is listed twice on the sheet, once for itself and once for the Astoria’s hull numbers. The eight-step instructions are on an accordion-folded two-sided brochure. A very nice color profile of the Astoria will be helpful with the rather simple camouflage scheme the ship wore in 1942.

Trumpeter made a shrewd decision when it chose the New Orleans-Class cruisers as a subject. By switching out different types of turrets and superstructure parts they will be able to package three major subgroups. According to my research, the New Orleans was the first ship of the class issued by the company. The next one, San Francisco, was issued with two different superstructure sprues. The third, Astoria, has the same sprues as the San Francisco, but uses a different part for the hanger gun tub. Any subsequent issues of the Quincy and Vincennes will have to reflect a shorter forecastle and main battery turret arrangement. I should note that the instructions call for the use of New Orleans’ rounded face turrets (Part B-3), but you should use the flat-face turret (Part C-7).

The hull parts are in three pieces: the upper hull, the lower hull and a waterline plate. The upper hull not only has portholes, but eyebrows for them. You will notice on the close-up that there’s an extra eyebrow up forward that will have to be removed. The anchor hawsers are rather basic. Even though I build mainly waterline ships, I found myself running my fingers admiringly over the clean lines of the lower hull. It comes dry fitted to the upper hull with what looks like a perfect fit and creating a temptation to glue them together.

The sprues for the float plane and main deck (E), display stand (F) are all the same as for the previous two kits. Sprue A is also the same and has parts for the funnels, catapults, masts, other superstructure and deck fitting details as well as the prop shafts. The kit provides doubles of both sprues B and C, which have both styles of gun turrets, two types of eight-inch gun barrels with blast bags, five-inch guns, 1.1-inch guns and 20 mm guns. The B sprues have the early style rounded face gun turrets that will be used in the kit. It also has the 20 mm guns with rather small gun shields that will benefit from an aftermarket PE enhancement.

Sprues H and J are specific to the San Francisco and Astoria (and possibly any further issues of Tuscaloosa and Minneapolis). Both contain mainly superstructure parts and parts for the upper decks.

Conclusion

This looks like it is going to build into a very nice kit. Sure there are a lot of fiddly bits that will require my narrowest set of tweezers, but it’ll be worth the effort. The simple camouflage scheme should make things easier. I’ve already had to deal with an MS 12 mod. for my Loose Cannon Vincennes and one of those angular MS 31, 32 schemes for a Pit Road Miami. So, I’m ready for an overall Navy Blue for a change. If it weren’t for the fact that all my other WW2 USN warships are waterline, I’d be sorely tempted to build this as a full hull. That lower hull looks gorgeous.