Introduction...

US Navy ships have a quite distinctive design of anchor. Any visit to a ship, flick through a few books or even a wander through some of the walkrounds posted on the Kitmaker network will confirm the distinctive appearance of the US anchor. The USS North Carolina walkround has a good view from the bottom of an anchor, looking at the crown, showing the butterfly like stock cast at right angles to the direction of the flukes.

The stock is at the bottom of the anchor unlike the traditional style of anchor on old fashioned sailing vessels where it is near the top. Here (Link) can be found a description of modern anchor parts and here (Link) is a more traditional type of anchor. I ask seafaring professionals to forgive any errors in my use of shipbuilding nomenclature and am happy to be corrected of any errors.

To reproduce the complex shape of anchors in 1/700 scale plastic is quite a challenge and not always successful. Older kits may not have representations of anchors at all and this is where Lion Models WW2 US Navy Anchors & Cable Hole comes in.

What do you get?

A 5.5 x 9 cm sheet of etched brass with 3 sizes of anchor in 2 parts. 6 large, 5 medium and 4 small. There are also ‘cable hole’ or should that be hawseholes? These are represented in 2 types, open topped and D shaped and in 2 sizes options. There are 72 large ‘holes’ and 48 smaller in each of the 2 types. Some of the parts are very small

The sheet is mounted onto thin film (how do they do that?) and each part is not attached to the brass sheet which is a very thoughtful way to supply the parts. No chance of tiny parts pinging off into the carpets hungry mouth when you cut them out and no fiddly awkward filing to cleanup the attachment point. I don’t know if other manufacturers supply PE like this but it is certainly very helpful to clumsy modelers like me.

The anchors are very neatly etched to give different thicknesses to the anchor flukes and the shank. They are also designed to be folded so that the anchor is very nicely 3 dimensional, with a realistic appearance on both sides. The second part to the anchor is the stock which is attached to the bottom of the shaft. The stock for the smaller anchor is very very small. The parts are laid out without the same size parts next to each other, the large anchors are next to the small anchor stocks and vice versa so the modeller has to realise this.

The hawseholes are going to add easy detail to guardrails effectively but the smaller size will require the steady hand of the 1/700 shipbuilder and a good magnifier.

On the downside there is no assembly guide or suggested placement for either the anchors or hawseholes. OK they are pretty straightforward and experienced modelers will have no trouble but these are a pretty easy upgrade for less experienced modelers and some guidance might be helpful. I realize an additional sheet of paper would increase costs but perhaps examples or suggestions for use could be printed on the reverse of the presentation mounting card?

Conclusion...

When painted I think these will look great and there are enough to fit out several ships. For a simple and effective upgrade for 1/700 ship modelers I think £4.99 is pretty reasonable.