"Mk.I Eyeball" Review
1/48 scale Ohka Type 11

by Steve Zaloga

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I have recently been working on some 1/48 scale Ohka models, and I noticed some references on the HyperScale forums to the new Marushin die-cast as being "more accurate" than the old Hawk/Tsukuda/Testors/Italeri Ohka. So I ordered one of the Marushin models from Hobbylink Japan. It is not cheap, arriving in the US for about $40 with shipping; prices at US die-cast vendors are much higher, in the $80-85 range, and it is not widely available yet in the US.

I find it hard to make any definitive statement as the the overall accuracy of either, as I do not have any scale plans or dimensions that are rock solid. So I decided to do a straight-forward comparison. I used the generally accepted basic dimensions (Length= 6.066m, wingspan= 5.12m) and then photographed the side profile of the Hawk and Marushin models to provide a rough comparison alongside a photo of an Ohka taken at Kadena in 1945 from the NARA files.

The Hawk kit fuselage is signficantly larger than the Marushin kit both in terms of length and diameter. Likewise, the wing has wider chord although the actual span of both models is the same. The side profile of the canopies certainly favors the Marushin die-cast model. My gut instinct is that the Marushin die-cast is the more accurate of the two in terms of basic shapes and dimensions. From a scale modeling standpoint, there's not a lot to choose as the Marushin kit is solid metal, and has fairly clunky detail. The plastic Hawk model would be easier to build into a detailed display model since it would be easier to clean up the poor surface detail and to add detail to the cockpit and other areas, but the dimensional issues would be difficult to correct.

Maybe we will get a kit from Platz as is the rumour?

Model, Images and Text Copyright © 2009 by Steve Zaloga
Page Created 3 May, 2009
Last Updated 4 May, 2009

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