1:700 JAPANESE NAVY HEAVY CRUISER ATAGO

A heavy cruiser with a tower instead of a bridge

The Atago was the second unit of the Takao class, a quartet of heavy cruisers of the Imperial Japanese Navy. She was launched in June 1930 and entered service in the spring of 1932. She carried ten 20.3 cm guns in five twin turrets and, with them, a powerful 61 cm torpedo armament. Her speed exceeded thirty-four knots.

The silhouette and the end of the ship

The Takao class was recognizable by its massive forward superstructure, which in silhouette suggests the tower of a fortress rather than the bridge of a warship. The Atago long served as the flagship of a heavy cruiser squadron, and in October 1944 she sailed at the head of the main striking force toward the island of Leyte. In the Palawan Passage, on the twenty-third of October, a salvo of torpedoes from an American submarine struck her and she went down within a few tens of minutes. The commander of the force survived and transferred to another ship.

Why ships are built in 1:700

1:700 is the most widespread scale for warships, because even a heavy cruiser stays under thirty centimeters in it and can sensibly be displayed. At the same time, work with the small details decides the result: booms, cranes and ship's boats will take additional thinning, and wooden deck planking comes to life with a thin layer of oil paint wiped off with a cloth. The line between the side and the underwater part is better drawn with masking tape than freehand, because an uneven waterline spoils even an otherwise successful hull. 1:700 also makes it possible to stand a whole squadron side by side, for which there is no room in a display case at larger scales.