TAMIYA YAMATO, MUSASHI BATTLESHIPS - IMPERIAL JAPANESE SEAPOWER IN MINIATURE

SMN REPORT
1:350 scale seapower fans can model the most powerful ships of the Imperial Japanese Navy in World War II, the famed Yamato, and her less-well known sister ship, the Musashi.

LITTLE AND LARGE SCALE MODELS FROM TAMIYA

SMN report:

We mentioned the 1:350 scale Yamato battleship last week, and now comes the question: “What about the crew?” The real thing needed nearly 2500 (yes, two-and-a-half thousand) crewmen to keep her in fighting trim, so it’s a matter of choice whether you display a ghost ship, or one that’s ready to steam in open water, mission to face the enemy. Tamiya has a solution for the latter choice - miniature crewmen made to the same 1:350 scale.

JAPANESE BATTLESHIP ‘YAMATO’ - NEW-TOOL KIT FROM TAMIYA NOW AVAILABLE

SMN report:

Announced a few weeks ago, and now freely available, the mighty battleship Yamato from Tamiya is released in 1:350 scale. According to Tamiya, this is an all-new tooling of the ship, not a rehash of the previous Tamiya 1:350 scale kit.

COMING SOON - SEXY ROBOT COLLECTIBLE

SMN report:

To science-fiction fans of a certain age - and robot lovers in particular - the name Hajime Sorayama may well be a revered one. For 64 year-old Sorayama made his name in the late 1970s and 1980s for producing beautiful airbrushed illustrations of ‘sexy robots’, humanoid machine-beings apparently made of gleaming metal, and most importantly, looking highly feminized. The bottom line was that, unlike standard-issue nuts-and-bolts droids, they were utterly gorgeous pin-up material.

ON THIS DAY 1945 - JAPANESE BATTLESHIP ‘YAMATO’ SUNK IN THE PACIFIC

SMN report

The Yamato, biggest battleship ever built and flagship of Japan's World War II fleet, was sunk on 7 April 1945 some 80 km (50 miles) south-west of Kyushu, Japan’s southerly main island, after multiple attacks by US Navy forces. By August that year, the Japanese High Command had destroyed all drawings and official photographs of the 72,800-tonne ship, to keep her details from approaching Allied forces.

The Yamato, seen here on patrol in the Pacific Ocean.