Trumpeter
1/350 FS Richelieu 1943
Kit Number: 05608
In-Box Review by  Charles Landrum, IPMS# 26328

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MSRP: $140
Review kit provided by Stevens International: www.stevenshobby.com

At the outset of the Second World War in Europe, France was in the midst of building its last dreadnoughts, the four ships of the Richelieu Class. Designed as a follow on to the Dunkerque Class, three of the four ships were either on the ways or in the water. Richelieu was nearly complete, while Jean Bart was still fitting out and lacked most of her armament. Clemenceau would never launch and Gascogne was never laid down. The nearly complete Richelieu sortied from Brest to the French colonies in North Africa. After the Fall of France, she suffered pre-emptive attacks by the British, unsure were the loyalties of the Vichy government lay. She remained in North Africa to first oppose the Anglo-US landings in Operation Torch only to then join the allies when the Vichy forces in North Africa joined the cause of the Free French. Richelieu then sailed for the Brooklyn Navy Yard New York for repairs and modernization. She received a decidedly American look with the fitting US Navy small caliber weapons and radar, an appearance that remained through the remainder of her service life. She fought in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans and was present in Tokyo Harbor for the surrender ceremony. Post war she saw limited operations and eventually became a receiving ship in Brest where she remained until 1968 when she was towed away for scrapping in Genoa.

Despite, recent trends in Japan, Trumpeter continues to dominate the ship model business, expanding the variety of offering in 1/350 and 1/700. With this latest offering Trumpeter has ventured away from its steady stream of releases of US, Russian/Soviet and Chinese vessels. Up until this time Heller offered the only kits of Richelieu in their standard scale of 1/400. An older kit, it builds up into a nice representation of the ship, but suffers from fit issues and older molding techniques. This new Richelieu in 1/350 was welcomed as an opportunity for taking advantage of lessons learned in ship model mold making of the last 10 years and to have a model in standard scale. The release of this kit lit up the discussion boards in France. Here is a summary of the faults the Richelieu experts in France found:

  • The hull
    • Generally speaking, the hull is good; the dimensions are accurate to within 0.5mm. The bow is a little too vertical, making the curve at the bottom of the bow a little too high (about 1.5mm maximum). From the junction of the stern with the hole in the axis of the rudder and a distance of 20mm to the waterline, the shape of the hull is a little too strong (1mm maximum). The sternpost should be modified to about 0.8mm on the upper part.
    • The rudder, propellers, propeller shafts are wrong and should be replaced. It is missing the false keel.
    • The bilge keel can be replaced, but is far from being a priority.
    • The anchors and their hawses are false and really deserve to be replaced.
    • The porthole location on both sides of the hull are identical, they should be different.
    • The foc'sle is incorrect.
  • The superstructure
    • Generally speaking, the details are beautiful and dimensions are quite accurate, forms are not strictly accurate. The first deck, bunkers and the main tower are striking examples.
    • The funnel is a good shape, although the rear is straight instead of being curved. But it lacks 1.5mm in length.
    • The bridges are more or less accurate.
  • Equipment
    • The 40mm Bofors are very ugly need to be replaced. The associated gun directors are missing.
    • The 20mm Oerlikons are even uglier and must be replaced.
    • The 100mm are nice looking but wrong in dimension; plus the aft end of the shield is wrong. The underside of the 100mm platforms should be open on the sides.
    • The 152mm turrets are mostly correct in shape and dimension and can be used without problem. The barrels are wrong and must be replaced. The range finder of the central 152 turret should be the same as that of the other 152 mm turrets.
    • The 380mm turret is too small. The blast bags, their barrels and their barbettes are wrong and have to be replaced. The shape of the roof of turret 2 isn't good.
    • The gun directors of 380mm and 152mm are inaccurate.
  • Other elements
    • The boats are pretty, but wrong.
    • The rafts, projectors, ammunition boxes, paravanes, smoke screen generators are ugly and wrong.
    • Bofors mounts and Oerlikons bulwark' shields, cradles and cranes can be improved even perhaps replaced.
    • The searchlights are wrong.
    • The camouflage is at best representational. It wore such a camouflage from September 1943 (date of the end of its modernization at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in NY) to April 10 1944.
I will address these perceived shortcomings in my review of the kit. I do not pretend to be more knowledgeable, but can look at it with an impassionate eye.

The Kit

Like other Trumpeter kits, this box is filled with plastic, eight sprues in all in addition to the major components. It includes:
  • A single piece hull.
  • Three sections of deck.
  • The boat deck.
  • The 380mm turrets.
  • Sprues A, B and D, which includes hull and superstructure components.
  • Sprue C, which consists primarily of gun tubs.
  • Spruee E (x2) and F (x2) have the parts for the guns, boats and miscellaneous fittings.
  • The standard Trumpeter base and a nice raised-letter nameplate.
  • A decal sheet with only the Tri-color included.
The first thing you will notice is that the hull is a single piece. This is a curious departure from Trumpeter's normal practice of offering the option of either a full hull or waterline in the same kit. The hull has recesses on the inside ensuring a stronger seam between the deck and the hull. Using official plans that I downloaded from the internet, the hull form does look generally accurate, but I agree with critics that the stem is too vertical. The shape of the stern area at the rudder and propellers is acceptable and I would only make minor changes. The bilge keels are okay but easily removed and replaced since they are solidly molded. The shafting is okay, the struts are simplistic poorly shaped, they need to be sanded to an airfoil cross section. The propellers are correct in diameter and are properly handed, but the blades are poorly shaped. The rudder looks okay to me. The chocks are molded to the deck edge of the hull and are molded closed; these are best replaced. I cannot comment on the accuracy of the porthole placement

The main weather deck is broken into three parts, the bow and the stern at the same level and the amidships raised one level. Trumpeter has cast each as one piece and because of the design of the ship there are no deck seams. A dry fit of the decks to the hull is good with only a little work required on the bow section at the stem to achieve a tight fit. Overall deck detail is nice and the plank detail fine and recessed. The bits are molded on the deck and are bit anemic. At both the bow and stern anchors, the anchor chain is molded and the hawse openings poor. The double breakwaters are nicely molded as separate pieces which will save a lot of complicated masking. The windlasses and capstans are also nicely done. The biggest issue with fore deck is that the foc'sle is molded as a mirror image of the prototype; a big mistake. Since this area is steel and not teak, and therefore smooth, it can be corrected, but it should have been caught during the test shots. To fix this area, I would remove the windlass foundations and scratch build new ones, they are not complex. L'Arsenal is talking about mastering a corrected foredeck in resin.

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The superstructure is nicely molded in a large number of detailed pieces. The large piece count means the modeler needing to build up the components. Comparing components against official drawings they look accurate, in fact it looks like Trumpeter used a set of the drawings to create the patterns. This is particularly evident with the smoke stack. Molded detail on all components is nicely done and includes: doors, portholes (some need to be drilled out), ladders and piping. Windbreak details include stiffeners and radius bends at the cap rail - some of the nicest detail in this area that I have seen. The smoke stack grille is not molded open, but blanked off, not uncommon for models - it should be replaced or sanded through from the back. Many but not all of the overhangs have adequate supporting structure molded in. Also nicely molded are the splinter shields and the gun and director tubs.

Where the kit falls down is its representation of the armament. The main turrets are pretty accurate in shape. Some of the facets are not quite right, but they are minor and not worth fixing. The turrets are too short in length. The kit rangefinders are even with the back of the turret, when in fact the rear glacis should extend farther aft; this is an easy fix with .04 or .06 styrene. The molded detail could be crisper, but is acceptable and the spotting guns are provided. The 380mm barrels are correct in length and round in cross section, but they are molded solid and will need to be drilled out. The barrels have a curious small step at the muzzle (which a little CA as filler and sanding should fix). Trumpeter gives you the option of barrels with or without molded blast bags. Go without - the blast bags are incorrectly shaped, extend too far down the barrel and have odd recessed detail. With some effort the bags can be made presentable. The 152mm gun turrets are nice, accurate in shape and detail. Solidly molded, the barrels are reportedly inaccurate, but I don't see it. According to the experts, the rangefinder of all three turrets should match - the center one does not. With that said, there is a post war picture of this area and the center one is different. The 100 gun shields are nice but not nearly as complex as the prototype. Period photos show the shields to be open in the back, per the kit, so the shields look right for mid war. The gun and trunion assembly is too simplistic and with an open back you should see more detail. I hope that L'Arsenal offers resin replacements. The 40mm guns are toy-like at best and need to be tossed. The 20mm guns are a little better, but look too large and out of scale. Recommend aftermarket replacement. Where did these small caliber guns come from, given the quality of detail elsewhere?!

The other details in the kit are okay, some being closer to prototype than others.
  • Major caliber gun directors are nicely molded with good detail. Hard to tell how accurate they are since I lack good close-up photos.
  • The 40mm gun directors are not provided.
  • The ships boats are okay, but suffer from a lack of detail and are not that accurate. They can be salvaged with some work.
  • Paravanes are the right shape but look out of scale.
  • Anchors are okay.
  • The search lights look good, though spoiled by injector pin marks; they do not match drawings I have of a typical French Navy searchlight od the period.
  • The rafts have come under criticism, but look okay to me.
  • The smoke generators look fine too.
  • The dreaded Aztec temple step are provided as separate pieces.
As for printed matter, the instructions are typical Trumpeter and are relatively easy to work with, though their assembly sequence for ship models is a recipe for heartbreak (not to mention broken plastic!). The color profile is at best a simplistic representation of Richelieu's camouflage scheme. You are better off using it for color call outs and painting by photo. The decal sheet only has the Tri-color and does not include the mottos found on French Ships like "Patria" or "Honeur". Also the ship's name is not included.

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It is known that Trumpeter has a varsity and junior varsity design team to help keep up the pace. In this kit I believe it was a mixed team. It appears to me that this kit suffered from a change of priorities at Trumpeter. The basics are sound, but shortcuts were taken later in the design and tool manufacturing to save costs. This explains the full hull rather than the typical split hull that requires more plastic and reinforcement. It also appears that the Junior Varsity team came in to finish the model, which might explain the screw up on the forecastle and the short cuts in the smaller details. Trumpeter may have woken up to the fact that this subject has limited appeal outside of France and they cut costs accordingly.

So what is the verdict? I look at the Richelieu as a fairly typical ship model over the last 20 years, where most modelers will need to add or replace detail. Unfortunately the Asian model companies (including Trumpeter) have really raised the bar on detail in the last few years and so Richelieu pales in comparison. Were it released 5 years ago, the scrutiny might be less. Still the kit provides a sound basis for a nice model of an attractive ship. The issues with the foc'sle and the small caliber guns aside, there is nothing so heinous as to make the kit unbuildable. Correcting the foc'sle and upgrading the smaller details with replacements will make this a very nice model on your mantle. Since it has a lot of US Navy armament/equipment, details are readily available. If you are patient, L'Arsenal is the company to wait for since they are making an upgrade set that will likely include Jacque Druel's beautiful small caliber guns. Recommended.

p.s. I have already started to see it offered at a deep discount in the US.

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Sprue B

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Sprue C

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Sprue D

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Sprue E

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Sprue F

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