IJN "Hiei" - Japanese "Kongo" class line ship

In the late 19th century the command of the Imperial Japanese Navy sought to ensure, that the forces under their command had the latest line-ships in their arsenal, which at the time determined the might of any navy. Since Japan had good relations with Great Britain, it used to order its latest warships there (the battleship "Mikasa"). Over time, representatives of the Japanese shipbuilders and the British shipbuilding industry began to cooperate very closely. When the British built the newest line-cruiser "Lion", in 1910 Japan signed a contract with the "Vickers" company for the building of even more innovative ships of this class. This is how the newest and most modern line-cruiser in the world "Kongo" was built. Built in Britain in 1912, it differed from the previous prototype in that, it was armed with 356 mm naval guns of the highest caliber at the time. The caliber of medium artillery was also increased from 102 mm to 152 mm. The ship's engines, whose power reached 64,000 h. p., allowed to develop a speed of 27.5 knots. "Kongo" began service in 1913. Another ship of this class has already been built in Japan at the Yokosuka Shipyard. It was "Hiei". The "Kongo" class of ships also included "Haruna" and "Kirishima". "Hiei" entered service on August 4, 1914. Modernized in the mid-twenties. During modernization the elevation angle of the artillery of the main towers was increased to 43 degrees, which made it possible to increase the firing range from 29 thousand up to 33 thousand m. In the thirties the "Kongo" class cruisers were reclassified as line-ships. "Hiei" was rebuilt and reclassified as a training line-ship. During the rebuilding, part of the boilers, medium weapons and the rear artillery tower were dismantled. Before the refit was completed, Japan withdrew from the London Treaty and the ship had to be refitted as a full-fledged line-ship. . During that rebuilding, a new 132,000 h. p. power plant was mount, the length of the ship increased by 7.6 m, the speed increased to 30.5 knots, mounted catapult, cranes and 3 Aichi E13A "Jake" airplanes included in the armament. He joined the service again in January 1940. The "Kongo"-class ships, assigned to Division 20, participated in all of Japan's initial battles and combat operations in the Pacific as carrier escort. In the Battle of Guadalcanal "Hiei" was severely damaged - the ship was hit 85 times from a short distance. After extinguishing the fires, the ship became almost unmanageable and on November 13 it was hit by 4 aerial bombs and 4 torpedoes. After these hits and the fact, that it was not possible to tow the ship to the nearest repair base, the destroyers of the squadron sank the barely alive ship with torpedo shots.

A large, complex, well-designed ship model. The detailing is at a high level, the textual and graphic instructions are very excellent. But the ship (like the vast majority of Japanese ships of that time) is rather gloomy, dark, but... perfectly recreating the appearance of a real ship in 1940. Model only for medium experience and experienced "sea wolves". Disadvantage - no color stock. This publication is a reissue of the previous publication with some color corrections to bring it closer to the ship's original colors.