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Cyber Hobby 1/700 USS Albany CG-10

By Chris Banyai-Riepl

Overview

Wartime innovations led to an improved Baltimore-class cruiser design, the Oregon City-class cruisers. Ten ships were authorized, but the first ship wasn't completed until after the war. As such, only three cruisers were finished (a fourth was built as a command ship), and they were rapidly decommissioned. The second ship, CA-123, found a second wind, though, when it underwent a major conversion into a guided missile cruiser and became the lead ship for the Albany-class guided missile cruisers.

The conversion was significant, taking several years to complete. The superstructure and all the gun armament was removed from the Albany, and a new, lightweight aluminum superstructure was built up. The new CG-10 started out with an all-missile armament, but two 5-inch guns were soon added. The main armament consisted of Talos and Tartar missiles, although the Talos system was deactivated in 1976, leaving the ship with only the Tartar missiles. Plans were in place in the late 1970s to replace the Tartar system with the superior SM-1(MR) and add Harpoon missile launchers, but it was discovered that the ship needed significant work beyond the systems upgrade. The Albany was decommissioned in 1980 and eventually scrapped.

The Kit

While this isn't the first injection-molded Albany-class guided missile cruiser, it is the first in a standard scale, and it is quite a bit above the old Monogram USS Chicago kit. The kit comes molded in the standard Dragon Models light gray plastic and takes advantage of their trademark slide mold technology. In addition to the plastic parts, the kit comes with a small fret of photoetch that provides some of the finer details, and a decal sheet with all the usual markings. A close inspection of the kit reveals that it is set up to represent the USS Albany from after it received its 5-inch guns in 1963 through to its first major refit in 1968, where electronics upgrades changed the antenna layout.

For those new to ship kits, a quick glance at the instructions might excite you, as there are only ten steps. For those familiar with Dragon and Cyber Hobby kits, though, you know that isn't really the case. For Step 1 there are eight sub-assemblies, with seven of those requiring two to four assemblies each. Welcome to ship modeling, where repetition is the name of the game. This one is a bit easier, too, as it's mainly missile armament, so there isn't vast numbers of gun tubs to assemble. What you do get to build in this first step are the four large AN/SPG-49 block antennas, four small dish antennas, two large SPS-30 dish antennas, two lifeboats with separate davits, two Talos missile launchers (with separate missiles), and two Tartar missile launchers. You also get to choose between plastic and photoetch structure for the aft SPS-30 radar (I'd recommend the photoetch).

With the small bits done (and you got off easy here; go look at what the Albany had on it when it was CA-123 in terms of armament!), the rest of the construction revolves around building up the superstructure. There are three main pieces here, both done with slide-mold technology that creates single pieces with crisp detail all around. The forward superstructure assembly gets a pair of the AN/SPG-49 antennas, all four of the small dish antennas, both of the Tartar missile launchers, and some smaller details such as photoetch ladders. The aft superstructure assembly gets the remaining two AN/SPG-49 antennas, the assembled photoetch SPS-30 structure, and a pair of lifeboats, as well as photoetch ladders.

The center superstructure is a bit more complicated. This is where the tall superstructure is built up, and the bridge piece that incorporates the forward stack is another impressive one-piece tooling. The bridge piece is separate and fits onto this, as does the forward SPS-30 dish antenna and other various bits and pieces. Photoetch railings are also provided. This fits onto the lower central superstructure piece, again a one-piece molding, on which fits the two-piece ASROC launcher, two motor launches, some more photoetch ladders, and the rear stack assembly. The rear stack assembly has the two five-inch guns and the large rectangular array antenna for the top. This is provided in both plastic and photoetch, and while more challenging, the photoetch is definitely the better route to go here. Finally the forward deck is separate, on which fits the fore Talos missile launcher. This piece is nice, although more fastidious modelers will quickly remove the molded-in anchor chain.

Finally, with all the topside stuff together, the last bit is to assemble the  hull. The hull comes molded in two pieces, with the upper hull nicely detailed all around. Again, Cyber Hobby is taking advantage of their slide mold technology to produce a one-piece upper hull that has sharp details on all sides. The lower hull is similarly detailed, and it gets separate shafts, screws, and rudder for detailing. Finally, the standard Cyber Hobby/Dragon ship stand is included. For painting, well, you have to love Cold War USN ships. Gray on top, red on bottom, with a black line between. It can't get much simpler than this. Even so, this one has some interesting extras, like the black tips to the funnels and white missiles to help break up the wide swath of gray. The decals provide the hull numbers, the helicopter landing pad markings, and the ship's name.

Looking Closer

Out of the box it will build up into a nice replica, although there are some additions that could be made to improve its accuracy. One of the things I noticed was the lack of nets around the Tartar missile batteries, which are rather noticeable in photographs and would have been easy to include on the photoetch fret. Undoubtedly we will see aftermarket photoetch for these, but it would have been nice to have them in the kit. Another thing I noticed was that the ASROC launcher sat flat on the superstructure. As this rotated to the side for launching, this piece needs to be raised up on a round mount. A piece of styrene rod will easily fix this, and photos of this mount are easy to find online for details.

Conclusion

Overall, though, this is a good kit of the USS Albany, and the minor nits outlined above should in no way detract from the fact that we have a nice new-tool guided missile cruiser. My only hope is that the interest in this ship is high enough to convince Cyber Hobby & Dragon to come out with a 1/350 example.