IJN Shokaku Aircraft Carrier (Japan) model


	IJN Shokaku Aircraft Carrier (Japan) by Daniel Kaplan


	Shokaku was an aircraft carrier of the Imperial Japanese Navy, the lead ship of her class. Along with her sister ship Zuikaku, she is most famous for taking part in many key engagements of the World War II Pacific Theatre, including the battles of Pearl Harbor and the Coral Sea.With Zuikaku, Shokaku joined the Kido Butai (Pearl Harbor attack force) and participated in Japan's series of early wartime naval offensives, including an attack on Rabaul in January 1942, and the Battle of the Coral Sea in May. In 1944 she was based at Lingga near Singapore. On 15 June 1944 she departed with the Mobile Fleet for Operation A-Go, a counterattack against allied forces in the Mariana Islands. During the Battle of the Philippine Sea on 19 June 1944 she was hit at 11:23 by three (possibly four) torpedoes from the U.S. submarine Cavalla (Commander Herman J. Kossler). As Shōkaku had been in the process of refueling aircraft and was in an extremely vulnerable position, the torpedoes started fires that proved impossible to control. At 14:08 an aerial bomb exploded, detonating aviation fuel. Shōkaku sank quickly, killing 1,272 men. The Yahagi, Urakaze, Wakatsuki, and Hatsuzuki rescued Captain Matsubara and 570 men. -- Wikipedia

This model has an interesting background. The flight deck and island were built as prototypes back in early 2003 for my Zuikaku model (pictures of which have yet to be submitted because I still need one decent weekend to finish photography). It was here that I first attempted number of new ideas and techniques, including scratch built rain gutters, the umber wash for the deck, even the cutout for #2 elevator. The island was used to experiment with very small details. The hull was also used as a test bed for removing the molded-on sponson supports that were replaced with styrene rod. The entire ship was completed in late 2004, after the Zuikaku model was completed. Other details were added or improved as time went by.

I’m generally satisfied with how it turned out, though some unsatisfactory details remain. The wash went on a bit thick for my taste, the arrestor wires ended up a bit too obvious, and I never was able to replace the molded-in bridge windows with PE because I used a little too much CA glue to hold the pieces together while doing other detail work on the bridge. I just couldn’t separate the bridge levels without destroying them.

Shokaku is depicted as of October, 1942 at the Battle of Santa Cruz.


				This model is used in the story "Coral Sea Duel "				This model is used in the story "Legend of Zero"

Scale model Tamiya WW2 Pacific War Modelsstory Photoshop




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