Completed Review – Tamiya 1:700 Japanese Submarines I-16 & I-58 (31453)

Scale: 1:700, RRP - £7.99 

So here's something miniature, 1:700 scale miniature. I have to confess this was an eBay impulse buy, I was browsing Tamiya items and for some reason it stood out from the rest. Before I knew it I'd gone through the checkout and it was on its way to me (along with two German Class Z Destroyers in the same scale).

While waiting for Royal Mail to get it to me I decided to do a bit of research. I have to confess that I know very little about ships and submarines, beyond details of a few famous battles and watching the film Das Boot many years ago. I rather liked the box art and thought it would make a nice naval diorama but my (all be it, limited) research seems to suggest the I-16 was sunk months before I-58 was ready for service and so the box art isn't accurate.

Anyway few days later it arrived and by this time I was excited by the potential for this build and was eager to get it out of the box and get the build started. There aren't many parts to the kit as to be expected, but what there is manages to convey enough detail to make two very nice submarines.

The I-16 has the option of carrying a two man Kohyoteki mini-submarine, so technically you get three subs for your money in this pack! The I-58 comes with a catapult and an Yokosuka E14Y Glen reconnaissance aircraft. Later in the war this submarine carried four Kaiten human torpedoes, however they're not included in this set, Tamiya released a later variant on it's own in another set.

I began by undercoating all the parts on the sprues with a grey Tamiya primer before giving them a base-coat of 2 parts Tamiya XF-53 to 1 part XF-63.

Once everything was dry I began removing the parts carefully from the sprues, and you do have to be careful as the parts are very small and delicate. There was was a fair bit of cleaning required to the periscopes and care has to be taken to avoid bending or snapping them, but apart from that there were no major dramas.

The hulls were both then masked and the decks were sprayed with Tamiya XF-55 ready for the conning towers to be attached. Both these models are waterline models and the flat base is a separate part which can be painted and then attached.

The conning tower assembly consisted of attaching the periscopes, instruments and a deck gun, which was painted with XF-56, metallic grey. It was here I learnt the importance of having a good pair of tweezers. The ones I used were far too thick at the tip and on a few occasions resulted in parts flying across my desk, fortunately to be found afterwards!

I-16 Conning Tower Detail

I-58 Conning Tower Detail including the hanger for the seaplane

Once complete they were both attached to the hull. Next up was the addition of the cranes, mini-sub and the seaplane and before I knew it I had myself two submarines.

So what are my thoughts on this kit? Despite never previously considering ships or submarines as a modelling subject I found this to be a thoroughly enjoyable build. I can't really comment on the accuracy of the kit as I don't have enough knowledge of the subject, but for this scale it looks detailed enough to me. There were few aspects I felt were more difficult than they needed to be, mostly as a result of the way the sprues have been created. But apart from that this was a welcome break from the other models that I'm working on so I'd not hesitate to recommend this kit.

Overall Build Score: 3 out of 5, a fairly simple build with a nice end result of two detailed models. Some slight issues with removing parts from the sprues which could result in parts getting broken.