Hello everyone,

I just wanted to mention that Kalmbach Publishing this month has released a new modeling book, Modeling World War II in the Pacific, and one of the articles included is my piece on a Fujimi 1/700 scale Japanese Maru-Yu submarine. The Maru-YU class cargo subs were special transports deployed in a desperation program by the Imperial Army (independently of the Navy) to slip emergency supplies to starving troops on remote Pacific islands cut off by U.S. forces.

The how-to article for the little diorama is in the book and I can’t republish it here, but I can give you all some pictures of the model as a preview:






The book has sixteen other projects as well, including an Essex-class carrier and a beautiful build of the Japanese cruiser Tone.

Check it out!

Gahhhh....! Look at how tiny that is! You do excellent work Tim, What type of scanning electron microscope do you use?!!
VR, Russ

Impressive Tim ! Beautiful work and published to boot !

Tim,

Great theme for a diorama. Your work looks amazing, love how you place everything.

Isn't 1/700 a little to large of a scale for you? LOL!

I will have to pick up the magazine. Again very nice work.

Mark

Great Dio Tim,

Really tells the story, your work in these small scales is stunning.

Cheers

Si

Russ, Richard, Mark, and Si - thanks! This Army sub was a fun little project.

It always struck me how truly awful interservice cooperation must have been in Imperial Japan that the Imperial Army actually got into the business of building submarines!

Tim,

I agree, but it should did help the allies during the war.

Mark

You are right; the USN had little trouble wiping out these primitive subs whenever they were encountered.

Sad for those brave Japanese Army crews - but better overall in the end, I suppose.

Great article got me to buy the Fujimi kit #400778. Interesting because the kit included A: 1/350 scale sub;B: 1/700 sub; and C:a transparent hull for another 1/350 sub. and decals for all and small photoetch sheet. very limited english language instructions. However the paint call outs were for Grey colors even though it would appear since IJA operated these vessels a more camo sceme would be more realistic. Great article I have both Pacific and Europe copies of these pubs.

Thanks Wayne! I too appreciated that Fujimi put a 1/350 version of the sub in the kit as well as the 1/700; it is still in my queue. Maybe I'll do the larger one as a full hull on a traditional pedestal mount...


So far I've only built the 1/700 version.

As for color, Fujimi's gray recommendations actually are correct as well, but I prefer the tsuchikusa iro ("earth grass color") brown-khaki Japanese Army paint - it is such an interesting departure from the usual navy grays.


Best of luck with your subs!