I got this kit as a kind of side effect of ordering some WEM PE stuff. It hade made eye contact with me for quite some while yet I never before had let myself go (blush). But now I bought it and right now I´m happy with my purchase.

 This kit must have been around since velociraptors roamed downtown Honolulu; I found a model at the modelwarships.com gallery by a guy who stated he had first built it back in 1958. Wow. It depicts a very successful and long serving ship type, the so-called T2 tanker mass-produced in WW2 complimenting the masses of Liberty and Victory ships to ferry fuel and lubricants over the atlantic ocean. Most of us will at some time of their lives have seen a war movie or read a war novel and wondered about the courage of the people who sailed these floating torches, always aware that without warning a torpedo might hit them and burn and drown them to death.

Well, what does this &(/%/&% end-opening box contain? First of all: To add insult to injury, Revell  has changed the style of its instruction sheets (copyrighted in 2004), they now fold the other way round and are very clumsy to use – figures with the blasted box style we´re all grumbling about. Otherwise you get the entire old T2 kit, molded in white styrene, with decals for the postwar Esso Glasgow and paper flags. The hull bears a copyright from 1982 but as stated above, the kit seems to be older than that. The general quality of molding is surprisingly good for a kit that old, there´s next to no flash and I didn´t find offending sinkmarks. Ejector pin marks are present yet less offending than on other kits. All in all nice value for money, those 84 kit parts. Given some research and modification, this kit is a great starting point to model quite a number of tankers from war and peacetime service. You´ll surely want to improve the crude and not-too-crisp details by scrounging through what the aftermarket has to offer or you can build from wire and stryrene. You´ll find seemingly endless possibilities for weathering, camo and general wear and tear.

 Revell also includes the armament for the wartime service as parts not for use; there are two heavier guns and 6 AA guns, plus mountings and splinter shields.

 All in all a great value for money and a kit yearning to be put on scale water and used in a dio with other 1:400 ships from Heller or Mirage. Highly recommended!

March 2005