Trumpeter 1/700 Jeremiah O’Brien Liberty Ship
By Chris Banyai-Riepl
Overview
Back in late 2004, Trumpeter released a 1/350 Liberty Ship, the Jeremiah O’Brien, followed later by another release of the John W. Brown, complete with different armament. Both of these are based on the two surviving Liberty Ships that have been restored, and likewise the new 1/700 kits are based on their larger brethren.
The Kit
Molded in gray, with red pieces for the lower hull options, this kit is somewhat simplified from the larger 1/350 kit (which is to be expected). The hull is made up from three main pieces, a lower piece (optional waterline or full hull), a center section, and an upper piece that includes the deck and gunwales. The remaining parts are included on four sprues, while a small decal sheet provides the minimal markings found on the Jeremiah O’Brien.
A quick test fit shows that the hull will go together quite nicely, with minimal gaps. Some careful sanding on the edges should result in a smooth hull, whether waterline or full hull. On the full hull option, the bilge keels appear to be too short, and should extend both fore and aft a bit more. This is a simple fix, though, either through adding extensions from plastic card, or replacing them entirely with strip stock.
Moving to the main deck, this is fairly straightforward. The fore deck has add-on pieces for the front gun mounts, which look quite petite, even for this scale. The various intakes are decent, although the more fastidious will want to drill them out a bit more. Note that the intakes for the engines are mirrored. The port side should have one large and one small (parts D10 and A30, respectively), while the starboard should just have the one large (D10). That is a simple matter of swapping sides and filling the extra hole. The cranes are nicely done, and should require little more than seam cleanup
Next up is the superstructure, and this gets a bit more complex as everything is made up from flat sides. This results in some very crisp surface detailing, but it also means that there will be some edge seam work to deal with. The various gun tubs and lifeboat davits are nicely done, and should be just fine straight out of the box. The ladders work in a pinch, but the more detail-minded will want to source some photoetch ladders. Another minor error crops up with the upper deck in that the parts have watertight doors molded in place. Wartime ships had simple wooden doors on these upper hatches. This is a pretty small error, though, and for most it would be fine to just leave them. Note, for post-war freighter conversions, these watertight doors would be accurate. One final issue with the main bridge is with the smokestack. The kit has this as a round piece, and it should be oval. Not an easy fix, and not that noticeable anyway.
Moving to the final assembly, the bridge, cranes, and gun decks all fit onto positive locators on the deck, making alignment simple. For the full hull option, an additional rudder piece and screw are provided. If you are building the waterline option, you can either fill the rudder post hole, or cut down the rudder to just the sliver that would be visible above the waterline. Finally, the four liferafts mounted on the deck are nicely done, with one small issue: they are of different types. The Liberty Ships carried either type, but they always carried the same type at all four locations. A simple swap with another kit will solve that problem.
For colors and markings, the choice is simple: gray. Granted, there is a red hull bottom, with a black and white separation line, but the rest of the ship is gray, and lots of it. Now, while this would make for a very boring model, this IS a Liberty Ship, and its primary mission was to move supplies from Point A to Point B as quickly as possible. That means that after a few ocean trips, these vessels will have weathered quite a bit. And they didn’t stop for painting breaks, so the options for weathering really open up some great possibilities.
For those more ambitious, one could also remove all the military hardware and do a post-war freighter. Colors change there, but those too were often heavily used and rarely painted, so again the weathering options are enormous.
Conclusion
This is a decent little model of the famous Liberty Ship, one which could be built out of the box very quickly. With some extra effort, it could build up into an impressive show-stopper as well. My thanks to Stevens International for the review sample.