I
bought this kit purely on the basis of it looking like a mean little
street fighter, and the Raiden’s involved in Japan’s home defence at
the end of WW2 certainly saw some fighting.
The
Raiden got its primary use during the defence of the Japanese home
islands. Its good performance, powerful armament, and armour protection
made it perhaps the best bomber destroyer employed by Japan
in the latter stages of the war. It had a good high-altitude performance,
and was one of the few Japanese fighters able to reach the high-flying
B-29 Superfortress. Its armament of four 20-mm cannon was sufficiently
heavy that it could do major damage against B-29s.
However,
I won’t go over the history of the aircraft, but will just focus on the
pictures! As my first Tamiya build, I really enjoyed the ease with which
it went together, and there’s a build thread on this in the ARC forum
(by Dylan the Rabbit) and that pretty much gives you a detailed breakdown
of the trials and tribulations of building this aircraft.
Click on
images below to see larger images
The
paints used were a mixture of Tamiya and Citadel acrylics, and Revell and
Xtracolour enamels, and the panel lines were highlighted with a black
chalk wash, and the whole lot sealed in with a coat of Xtracrylix satin
varnish.
I
used a turnbuckle provided by Bob Booth (ideally used for rigging WW1
planes (www.bobsbuckles.co.uk)
for fitting the aerial wire (hair) to the tail, and that’s it!
I
hope you enjoy looking at the pictures.
Cheers,
Nick
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