The RM Pola was an Italian heavy (8inch) cruiser of the Zara class. She served during the 1930's and sunk in 1941 during the Battle of Cape Matapan.
I've never done a large scale boat before, so this is step outside my normal comfort zone. When doing naval wargaming, I am a bit of a cruiser man, and I do like the Italian ones, so have been looking forward to doing this one for a while, but it is intended to be practice for the Tamiya King George V, which in turn is practice for the Trumpeter 1/200 HMS Hood, if it ever gets released. But enough waffle, onto the box.
The instructions are in the form of an A4 booklet.
Construction looks conventional, starting by adding the props to the hull.
And continues by building up a bunch of sub-assemblies until it's all brought together to give you a ship.
And some colour. It's a simple all over grey scheme, with a red underside. Will have to look at red Stynylrez primer to see how it matches.
And onto the plastic. The hull is a one piece molding. The inside looks a little scruffy, but the outside is nicely molded, and shouldn't need any cleanup.
The deck parts. I think three of them form the main deck, and the top right one forms the upper deck.
The kit includes a plastic stand. Not sure if I will use this or mount it on a wooden base.
A sprue full of superstructure and funnels. Again nicely molded.
And another with the ships boats, props and weaponry.
I am going to try wooden decks. For this I have a set from Wood Hunter (W35003). Not sure if they are self adhesive yet, and the set comes with some chain for the anchor and some photo-etch. Not sure what the PE is for and may not use it even if I can work out what it's for.
Master do a set of brass gun barrels for the 203mm main armament and the 100mm secondary guns.
They look very nice, but the 100mm barrels are very small.
I want to try and add railings, but you can't get them for Italian ships, at least not from Hannants. So, I giot a set of MK1 Designs for German ships, which should be close enough.
An now for something a little fun and interestin. The Pola is over 50cm long, so will it fit in the spray booth?
Just! There's not a lot of space at either end, but it should be OK. The instructions call for fitting the propellers first, but I think I will leave that until later in the build, so will probably start with making sure the plastic decks will fit into the hull, before moving onto the superstructure sub-assemblies.