From MilesR: 1/6000 WWII Imperial Japanese Fleet at Coral Sea (63 points)

From Miles:

A bit of a nautical theme for my next submission - the business half of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s Coral Sea fleet in 1/6000 scale. The miniatures are from Hallmark Miniatures. Initially I had some misgivings about trying to paint these mini’s but I actually found it to be fun. My goal for this project is to build out the entire Japanese and Allied fleets for the Battle of the Coral Sea, which I plan to refight using the Victory at Sea ruleset. I was pleasantly surprise by the level of detail the 1/6000 scale minis had, but keeping track of the various ship types will require the labels be attached along the sides.

The first photo shows the portion of the fleet that’s completed as of today: 5 Carriers, 8 Cruisers and 16 Destroyers. I have 3 Cruisers and 12 Destroyers yet to be finished. To provide some scale reference, the largest Carrier models are a little less than 1.5 inches long!

The second photo shows 4 Myoko class Cruisers and 8 Fubuki class Destroyers. The Myoko class Cruiser was one of the first Japanese capital ships to have extensive anti torpedo armor plating. The Fubuki class Destroyer were initially laid down in 1928 and some of the most heavily armed Destroyers of the war. Unfortunately, the heavy armaments made the class a bit structurally unsound, which could be a bit of a drawback when the other side hits you with a heavy shell.

The third photo shows the heart of the fleet - 5 Carriers, from top to bottom the Sokaku, Shoho, Ryuho, Zuiho, and last but not least the Zuikaku. The 5 ships carried over 300 aircraft with superbly trained aircrews. During the preparation of these models I either painstakingly painted the flight decks and aircraft or downloaded some flight deck images and painstakingly cut them out to fit the model. Either one was really a bit hard but I like the results. (Hint, go with option 2). The fourth photo is a US Dauntless Dive Bombers point of view. If I wasn’t so lazy, I’d but a dive bombers cross hairs on the Shoho as she was sunk during the Battle of the Coral Sea.

The 5th photo is of 4 Furutaka class Cruisers and 8 Hatsuharu/Shiratsuyu class Destroyers. The Furutaka Cruisers where light on gunnery weight with only 6 8 inch guns vs 10 for the Myoko class but they still had plenty of Long Lance Torpedos, which proved to be the most effective anti ship weapon in the Japanese arsenal. The destroyers where brimming with Long Lance Torpedos and made for very deadly opponents.

The last photo is a top down view of the whole fleet. Banzai!

Wow, an aircraft carrier at an inch and a half long - that is pretty darn cool (and wee).  These are really nice castings for such a small scale. I particularly like how the carrier decks turned out - very nice. Miles, how big is the sea mat that you have on the table? At first, I thought it was quite large and then I saw the playing cards and thermos mug on the side which made me shake my head!

This half of the Japanese Coral Sea Fleet will give Miles 63 points. I hope we get to see the last half of the IJN plus the American fleet before the Challenge concludes.