Review by: Geoff Coughlin (December 2011)
Our thanks to Revell for supplying our review sample. 
Initial Assessment
HMS Duke of York is a significant vessel for the Royal Navy dating back to WWII and was one of five battleships in the King George V Class.
They all survived WWII, except the Prince of Wales with HMS Duke of York gaining fame for the sinking of the Scharnhorst. It’s hardly surprising that Revell has therefore wanted to release a model of this famous ship in popular 1:700 scale.
The Revell kit
Click on the Thumbnails below to enlarge the images.
The Revell package is pretty good, considering the scale.
The vessel is waterline and clearly designed to be displayed in or on a suitable seascape, depending on your want.
The detail moulded onto the deck and superstructure is fair, especially for this very small scale and should paint and weather up to a decent finish.
The main guns are a dominant feature of the ship and will need some cleaning up to look their best; mould seams and the like but nothing out of the ordinary and what you’d expect.
There are some nice touches, like the inclusion of a Walrus amphibious aircraft, although finishing that little one realistically will prove a challenge. The deck cranes are moulded solid and aren’t very convincing.
I remember that years ago I had planned to build a ship model in this scale and, after some initial prep, I soon realised that I couldn’t simply go with what was offered in the box, rather scurrying off to the model shop to buy some Gold Medal Models etched brass railings; what a difference they made.
These days White Ensign Models seem to stock pretty much everything you could ever want as far as maritime modelling goes and I would seriously recommend a visit to their online store to check out what’s available for HMS Duke of York.
Instructions
This comprises a fold-out sheet with exploded diagrams showing where all the large number of parts go – clear enough.
The model isn’t unduly complicated as far as the build goes from this initial assessment and hopefully will present few, if any, problems to modellers with just a little experience.
Decals
Revell include a small decal sheet with appropriate White Ensign flag, which look good to use.
Colour is solid and strong with no items out of register; just remember to apply them onto a high gloss finish and then matt down as appropriate to reduce any chance of decal silvering.
In addition coloured signal flags are provided on a small paper sheet.
In Conclusion…
Perfectly reasonable really for the money and size of model.
Plenty of people buy and make models in this scale and you will have another major ship to add to your collection, which is a sight easier to store and display than Les’s Trumpeter 1:200 scale USS Arizona!
FEATURE STAR RATING (out of five)
Quality of moulding ***
Accuracy ***
Instructions ***
Decals ****
Subject choice ****
Overall ***
Geoff C.