Takom 1/35 MK.38 5"/38 Twin Gun Mount - Finished

Recently, I was browsing my local hobby shop’s site (makete.eu) and I came across this kit from Takom. It’s a weird one, isn’t it? A turret, but from a ship and in 1/35 scale too! It’s such a weird subject as you usually built ships as a whole, but the kit was fairly cheap, around 30€, so I went ahead and got one (later on, I got a second one) and it was probably one of my better choices in the hobby.

Scalemates says this kit was released in 2021. –https://www.scalemates.com/kits/takom-2146-mk38-5-38-twin-gun-mount–1371584, but until 2023., I never heard of this one or any of the other kits in the gun turret range such as the Bruno turret of the Bismarck, the Yamato turret, AK-130 turret etc.

While building the model, I got the idea to make it motorized and use servo motors to turn the turret and guns up and down. I got quite far in it and trialed the turret turning mechanism (linked), but as I started this build without the motorization in mind, I left the model alone and just built it as-is.

It is quite a nice model to built. It has a whopping 30 parts, but you do get metal gun barrels inluded with the kit which I very much appreciate as it both gives the model a more premium feel and it doesn’t require me to sand the barrels down and inevitably mess it up.

The kit is very sizeable at around 25cm in lenght and the same in height. Apart from small areas around the elevation and horizontal control trunnions (the boxes on the sides), there was no need to fill anything in which is surprising considering the size of the model. The rest of the kit assembles easily and it was such a welcome change to the usual fitting, filling and sanding (repeat a dozen times) that we get when building Italeri kits.

For painting, I primed the model with Mr. Surfacer 1500 and preshaded it with Mig’s black paint.

I used an approximate 75-25 mix of Mr. Hobby H308 and H335

Weathering was simple, using a black wash and some redish-brown oils for rust streaks.

The gun barrels were given a dusting of black chaulk and I’d say that they look nice in the end.

Here’s the finished model! I think it turned out quite well and I am very happy with the quality of the kit. As mentioned before, I bought a second kit and I also bought a 1/72 Yamato gun turret which is 60cm across. Absolutely masive!

FINISHING THOUGHTS – All ‘n’ all, I am very happy with this kit. It’s a fun kit of a very interesting subject for a fairly low price. It functions as a good test bed for weathering due to the large surfaces and it can also be a good way to get someone into the hobby as it has large pieces and it comes together like a big puzzle.

Posibilities for cosplay?

Another reason why I got this is because of a game – Kantai Collection. Essentially, the characters are anthropomorphisations of ships from the WW2 era, complete with guns, funnels etc. If you’ve been on the internet the past 10 years, you’ve probably seen at least one of these characters. Most famous ones are Kongō and Shimakaze.

With that in mind, I thought I could try and cosplay as a character from the game. The gun turret is definitely big enough for me to carry in hand as you can see and when compared to the characters in game, it is aproximately the same size.

Unfortunately (or fortunately), my physique prevents me from doing that, so this photo will have to suffice, but it does show the size of the turret.