U.S.A. Battleship USS Alabama BB-60

cphinney
After getting back into the hobby after 30+ years I chose a handful of "Basic" kits to build to get back in the feel of things. The first three I built were all 1/700, the Tamiya USS Hornet CV-8, Aoshima USS North Carolina BB-55, and Hasegawa USS Alabama BB-60. I will leave comments on all of them.

The Hasegawa 1/700 kit is dated and like the Tamiya USS Hornet would be best served to redo the entire kit. Don't get me wrong, its a beautiful build but there is a little special work you may want to do. The eye appeal of this model is really nice. It's a beautiful ship and mostly it goes together well. the big pieces are no issues. The problems are all the little AA guns are just glued flat to the deck which is a recipe to have them continually getting knocked off during the build process as well as I assume over time in addition to simply being a pain in the ass to put on. I do have the sister ship USS South Dakota also by Hasegawa and plan on buying aftermarket 20mm AA guns and drilling them in. Overall, its a great looking ship and I felt a bit cheated by the poor design of the AA guns. Another issue I can kind of understand but you will have to live with is on the bow there are 2 molded circles where other variants must have twin 40mm guns but the Alabama does not, it really is somewhat annoying. I wouldn't avoid buying this kit given it is very affordable, just be aware it's flaws and either accept them or plan around them.