Firstly, yes, it's the plastic; they ARE dark. The Kinu - even through her coat of paint, is dark. Kinu is based on the Royal Navy turn of the century cruisers and so considering that you could practically build the entire RN WW1 battle line with a few Kinu's - I'm surprised a larger scale one wasn't done.

Blue Water Navy, then Yankee Modelworks, did a 350th version of the Akatsuki which is a stunning little kit but - resin and nasty white metal.

As for the cruisers, only Long Beach was a cruiser. The Truxton, Bainbridge and California's were Destroyer Leaders (DLGN) and that "elevated" status was due to flag accomodation only. Reagan/Lehman hadn't been elected yet, so keeping the word "cruiser" out of the dictionary allowed the Navy to squeeze four Virginia Class nuclear "destroyers" out of President Carter. Likewise with taking four of the Spruances and stretching them (Ticonderoga) but continuing to call them destroyers.

Once Reagan got elected and the Navy successfully sold him on the Cold War, names were changed and all DLGN's became CGN's and all Tico's became CG's. The CGN's all had basic sonar, but nothing spectacular. After all, that's what the SSN was for that was attached to each carrier battle group. Therefore, it was an easy decision to plate over the hanger door on the Virginia's, use the hanger as a gym/basketball court and mount Tomohawks on the hanger roof. As built, the Virginia's had three Seasprites.

In the early days of Sparrow and short range Sidewinder, the carrier was left with only crap Sea Sparrow for defense. Terrier was too maintenance intensive which was the equivalent of putting a cruiser into each air craft carrier. Once SM-1 cleared the 20nm mark, every carrier skipper wanted a cruiser for defense. SM-2 was around 75-90 miles and that was carried by Adams Class DDG's, Coontz/King Class DLG's, John Paul Jones Class DDG's and of course the Brooke Class FFG's and all cruisers.

The add on upgrade was known as SM-2ER (extended range) and that bird on a bad day was capable of over 150nm and over 100000 feet ceiling. Oh and...at Mach 3.5. All the CGN's and CG's could carry it but only the Coontz/King's could carry it in the destroyer world. This left the cruisers pretty much stapled to the carrier's side. This is why I always laughed at Exocet and Kestrel. Those missiles only had a 60nm range. The attacking plane would be wiped out before it could get in range.

Cheers,


Don