By Dave Becker
1/350 USS Charles Ausburne DD-570 (Tamiya)
DD-570 USS Charles Ausburne as she appeared at the Battle of Cape St. George in November 1943. Ship is in Measure 21 Navy Blue 5-N.
Kit is the Tamiya 1/350 plastic USS Fletcher in 1942 model modified to later 1943 standards. This was the 3 position twin 40 mm gun mounts and eleven 20 mm AA guns for increased protection from enemy air attack.
This is the first kit that I built where I tried to modify and make into something other than the original model. I figured I'd try on regular plastic that on a more expensive resin kit. Everything you see in this model that didn't come with the actual Tamiya Fletcher kit is hand made. This is also one of the few kits where I actually used number decals. By my measurements I figure the numbers are almost twice the size as they should be. So in later builds I left the numbers off the model ships.
