HIJMS Shinano - 1/200 Scale

The story behind this model is it started off as one of two 1/200 Nichimo Yamato battleships I made many years ago, one I made as the Yamato for display and this one as a R/C model.  It didn't work out well, got her sailing ok, but too many parts broke off when sailing. So I stripped her to the weather deck and converted her to the carrier Shinano.

Shinano (the third in a planned build of four Yamato class super dreadnaughts) was under construction when the Japanese lost three carries in the battle of Midway, the decision was made to rapidly convert her to a supply carrier, meant to back up the front line carries with spare aircraft and parts etc. However she was sunk by torpedoes from a US sub on her way for final fitting out. One interesting thing I read at the time was a story from a Japanese pilot how he flew training flights off her deck and survived the war to become a stunt pilot in Hollywood. The flight deck of Shinano was constructed of a steel under deck topped by a cement/wood shavings mix, done i believe to make her lighter top side. According to this guy trying to land on her sailing into the wind was like flying into a heavy snowstorm as the shavings were being blown off by the wind.

There was not a lot of info on this ship, I only found 2 grainy pictures of her taken from shore. Most of my parts and layout were taken from a Hasegawa kit, and some guess work. Sorry about the quality of the pics, no digital cameras or internet back then. All the planes I had to scratch build. In fact, I must have scratch built about 905 of the upperworks, color was a guess as the Hasegawa kit showed her as green. I read they painted several of their carries green. Anyway, she now sits on a shelf in the bedroom along with Yamato having been taken from the very large display cases.

Cheers, regards.

Ian