by Adam Mcleish
1/350 USS John S McCain DDG-56 (Panda)
G'day all, this is my model of the Arleigh Burke class guided missile destroyer John S McCain. I chose this ship because it visited Melbourne, Australia this summer so I was able to board it and get a lot of detail photos. The paint I used was Tamiya, the haze grey was made up of:
The deck colour is XF24 Dark grey, this colour l just picked out as it looked good to me.
I opened up and added some water tight doors, bracing, fire hoses and drain pipes for some extra detail. I used a white ensign photo etch set witch greatly improved the mast and the rest of the ship but the white ensign photo etch set did not supply two bar railing as a lot of the upper deck has, so l used L'arsenal's 1/350 US Navy railing set which has plenty of railings in different lengths.
The Panda decals were crap so I used JAG's 1/350 Warning Circle decal sheet for all of the deck markings and only used some of the small Panda decals. The hull numbers I stole from a Dragon Ticonderoga sheet.
The MK-45 5 inch gun, Phalanx CIWS, torpedo launchers, MK-38 chain gun, Harpoon launchers, ECM and Chaff, and rigid hull inflatables are all from Veteran Models which adds some very nice detail. For the rigging I used elastic EZ line, and finally for the propellers, as the Panda kit ones were really crap, I grabed the props off my Trumpeter Arleigh Burke kit and gave them to a mate of mine who got a couple of sets cast for me.
With a little work, the Panda Arleigh Burke kit can really shine. I hope you all like my ship as I enjoyed building it.
Adam from Australia
