If you're a collector of Royal Navy models, the SS model of HMS ENTERPRISE, is something that you'll want to get...maybe. I say maybe because while it isn't a bad model, it's not particularly good either. In fact, without some scratch building of your own it's quite bad. So the question is, why would you want it, and what's wrong with it?

A few years ago when SS started producing kits in 1200 and 1250, two things were characteristic of their models. First the detail was excellent and minute. Beyond state of the art. Second, the kits were so complex, parts fragile and models difficult to build, that only the most experienced builders could successfully assemble them.

However over time SS has changed their methods, possibly due to customer complaints, and insufficient buyers with the skills needed to build their models. Now this has had both good and bad consequences. The good is that most new releases are created with more parts molded together, often reducing the assembly required to only a few parts. These kits are easy to assemble. The bad is that with some kits, detail has suffered, in some cases quite significantly. Added to that many newer kits simply lack parts like ship's boats, davits, small caliber guns etc.

ENTERPRISE is sadly a victim of this, and worse. Not only is it lacking ship's boats, but also the necessary 20mm and four barreled poms, and in addition it has some serious flaws. The twin 6" turret is shaped completely wrong and useless. The first and second funnels are shorter than the third funnel and an adjustment must be made because the third funnel is molded to the after superstructure. And the second, middle funnel, is wrong and must be discarded because it's the same diameter as the other two funnels, which is incorrect. I had to scratch build a new turret and funnel, as seen in the photo, plus pom poms and twin twin 20 mms.



So why would a collector want this model? Well, it is the only 1200/1250 scale model I know of that depicts the ship after her 1943 refit, which altered the ship in many ways, perhaps most noticeably with the extended foc'sle which extended aft past the second funnel. The Argonaut, Neptun, Clydeside and Authenticast models depict the ship as it was pre-war.

My finished model has an OS2U KINGFISHER on board, the only RN cruiser to carry one.