Best 1/700 USS Lexington/Saratoga?

[Andre B]

Hi!

 

Both Meng and Trumpeter offers the Lexington aircraftcarrier class  in 1/700. But which one of them are the best one?

https://www.scalemates.com/products/reviews.php?scale=1%3A700&topic=Aircraft+carrier+Lexington-class

 

Cheers / André

Edited July 3, 2019 by Andre B

[zed]

I haven't seen the Meng one yet, but having owned and then sold the Trumpeter one I can honestly say go Tamiya.

https://www.scalemates.com/kits/tamiya-31713-cv-3-saratoga--316915

 

This is a beautiful kit that blows the Trumpeter one out of the water.    Having said this, the Tamiya kit depicts her as she was in 1944 and that may not be what you are after.  She did after all change a lot.

 

[MikeR]

The Meng kit depicts the Lexington in 1941 to April '42 before she had the 8" twin mounts removed at Pearl Harbor Navy Yard prior to her loss at Coral Sea. It's also a clip fit kit albeit a very good one. The Trumpeter Lexington is meant to be her Coral Sea fit but a lot has changed since the kit was released so it'll need a lot of work to bring it up to snuff. By Trumpeters current standards it's a bit crude! As for the Saratoga, the Trumpeter kit depicts her pre-War whilst the Tamiya kit is 1944 condition.

 

If your looking for a simple build I'd second the recommendation for the Tamiya kit. The only thing to note is that the Sara only ever saw combat in that condition whilst painted in what's called Measure 21 which is overall 5N Navy Blue with (if you want to be fussy!) 20B Deck Blue decks and a Norfolk 250N Flight Deck stain flight deck! The dazzle scheme was only worn during her post '44 refit and was painted over before deploying to the war zone.

 

Mike.

[KRK4m]

Thus I'm also facing this "paradox of plenty"...

Aiming to portray the 1/700 Saratoga in her early-1942 fit (after the 1941 deck mods but still with big guns in situ) I can either start with:

• Fujimi (or snaptite Meng) Lexington in the same period fit and modifying only the parts that differed CV-2 from CV-3
• Tamiya (or cheaper ancient Fujimi) Saratoga in the 1943-45 fit and backdating her (e.g. the 8" guns) to the pre-Midway configuration
• Trumpeter/Pitroad Saratoga in the 1930s fit and introducing all the (e.g. wide deck) 1941 mods
• Trumpeter/Pitroad Lexington in the Coral Sea fit and modifying the parts that differed CV-2 from CV-3 plus adding the recently (then) removed big guns

As I'm not a "big" expert in the maritime modelling field could you tell me which one of these 4 ways sketched above will be the easiest to follow?

Cheers

Michael

[Richard502]

You can also post the question over at ship models, they have got a sub-board for Saratoga-class fans.

http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=9899

Richard

[KRK4m]

I know, Richard...

But I've started my MWS experience roughly half-a year ago with no results yet. Next I repeated the whole registration procedure in April, then a week ago.

I'm still unable to log in using my nick and password while introducing new password is quickly blocked due to the existing password/address combination.

Something crazy

Cheers

Michael

 

[Terry1954]

On 7/21/2019 at 9:25 PM, KRK4m said:

I know, Richard...

But I've started my MWS experience roughly half-a year ago with no results yet. Next I repeated the whole registration procedure in April, then a week ago.

I'm still unable to log in using my nick and password while introducing new password is quickly blocked due to the existing password/address combination.

Something crazy

Cheers

Michael

 

I had a similar experience and in the end 're registered using a new user name and entirely different email. That worked!

 

Terry