The Unofficial Airfix Modellers' Forum

First a little bit of history...

IJN Chiyoda

The Chiyoda was designed in the early 1930's as a Chitose-class seaplane and submarine tender. Its keel was laid in 1936, with it being commissioned into service by 1938. It saw action as a seaplane tender in the early stages of the Sino-Japanese War. In mid-1940, the Chiyoda was recalled for refitting into a seaplane and submarine tender (for the Type-A Kohyoteki-class midget submarines).

Following the Japanese losses at the Battle of Midway, the Chiyoda was again recalled to Japan for conversion into a light carrier. The conversion would last until December of 1943. The new Chiyoda light carrier would be involved in many naval battles throughout 1944. She was finally sunk in October, 1944, during the Battle of Cape Engano, with a loss of all hands.

The Kit

This kit, from Aoshima, is number WLE091-500 and was released in 1979. Being an old kit, I was pleasantly surprised by how nice it all was. The parts were crisply molded in very good plastic. Flash was minimal. The "decals" were basic (two flags and windows) to say the least. The instructions were entirely in Japanese, but the illustrations were easy to follow.



The Build

Really, this was a fairly easy build for which I am most thankful for. Unlike my last ship model, this one was a lot of fun to work on. I had a couple of problems but don't know if I was to blame or if there was a problem with the kit. There are four cranes (two on each side) of the raised deck/platform in the middle of the ship. All four has specific places indicated by either the assembly instructions or by a hole in the deck for placement. I found that, once the platform was in place, the cranes wouldn't fit. I ended-up repositioning them slightly to clear other parts or allow for the platform itself. Not a big problem, but it was a surprise considering how well everything else went together.

The kit comes with three float-planes and two midget submarines. I lost one of the floats so that plane was hurriedly converted into a Nakajima A6M2-N "Rufe" with a single float and was positioned under the platform. The decals lacked the Hinumaru that the ship painted on the platform (must have been a great target for USN bombers!) so I had to raid my spares box. As luck would have it, I had one of the correct scale to place on the deck.

Conclusions

I really enjoyed building this model. It is a large ship (close in size to my HMS Nelson battleship) that has a very unusual silhouette. It also has an interesting history. I would easily recommend it to anyone building a 1/700 Imperial Japanese Naval Force.

Great looking ship, and the last pic is a beauty.

Nigel

That looks really good.

That is very different. I have never seen a ship configured that way before. Thanks.

David

That's a really unusual subject and a fine build too; great work!

Thank you all for your kind comments, gentlemen. It's a fun kit to work on.

Nice model.
Bomber pilots would definitely find that meatball a very tempting prospect.

Looks very good, especially in the water.
The big cover was really just that, a cover for the aircraft storage and maintenance on deck ? Or did a/c get taken under there and then below decks ? It would seem to have been a better arrangement to have the boats on the cover and leave more room under it. Just curious.

A very unusual shape on a ship,very well done model.

jRatz wrote:Looks very good, especially in the water.
The big cover was really just that, a cover for the aircraft storage and maintenance on deck ? Or did a/c get taken under there and then below decks ? It would seem to have been a better arrangement to have the boats on the cover and leave more room under it. Just curious.

From what I found out about the ship (online research), that cover primarily acted as a cover for working on the aircraft and, later, submarines. In fact, I read that the crew held Sumo wrestling matches on it (and I have seen pics where a modeler included that feature on his build of the ship). There are also two hatches (for lack of a better term to call them) in the deck to the hold, but I don't know if they could be used like aircraft carrier elevators or not. It is an interesting design, isn't it?

Aoshima also makes a 1/700 version of this kit in the submarine-tender version (without any aircraft). The deck behind the stack is removable and you have a good number of mini-subs in the hold. Also, the aft-section of the ship apparently has doors to allow the subs to be launched (and recovered?).

Thanks for asking and for your comments (Yours too, Celt )

Thanks for that effort and the info.

That looks fantastic!

Great build and finish of a kit I did in 1982, there is far more information around now for finishing IJN subjects more accurately
This is mine from 1982,
DSC05152 13 Chiyoda CVSs by Neil, on Flickr

Very nice too!.

Thanks for including your build, FAAMan. It looks great! I really need to start experimenting with weathering ships now that I have a few builds done.