The USS Massachusetts, known as 'Big Mamie', was part of the South Dakota class of battleships. Although I had previously built smaller kits of this ship years ago, this is the definitive 1/700 kit of the ship that is now a floating museum at Fall River, MA, near Boston. This one can be built with either full hull or waterline, like the other Trumpeter kits (my personal preference is waterline since that is mostly what I already have). There are a good deal of small parts that require great care to remove from the molds but I found these were easier to detach than some other kits I had previously worked with. The kit has a great amount of detail, right down to the tiny capstans on the anchor deck & some very small AA guns. Nothing, however, that can't be handled with tweezers (especially if you have big fingers like me!). I was certainly happy with the outcome. Highly recommended.

This was my first model of a ship, so I came into it expecting a similar build experience to a model airplane. In general, that is true however there were many more small parts, very few could not be handled by tweezers. Some of the parts were marked as for the South Dakota, (BB-57) causing some issues with part fittings. One example of this, is the upper hull piece (marked BB-57) was slightly too large for the deck (marked BB-59). This didn't cause any issues during the construction, however it was a minor annoyance. Despite issues like that, the build experience was amazing, most parts (including the very small ones) fit together amazingly well. To make painting easier, I constructed the superstructure without any of the small parts first, painted it, (The Superstructure) then painted the smaller items on the sprue and installed them. The 16' turrets were remarkably easy to assemble with the exception of the rangefinders, which I could not figure out which way they go. The 5'38's went together perfectly, as well as the 40mm Bofors. The model also came with plenty of spare parts, such as the 20mm AA guns. Overall a great model that is well worth the price

I thoroughly enjoyed assembling this kit. Fit was great, detail good. She came with a unique paint scheme.