WEM 1/350 Dreadnought Photoetch
 
Talk about fast of the mark, but WEM have made one of their quickest turnouts of a dedicated ship p/etch that I can remember for a new plastic kit. Whatever they are feeding Peter Hall I would like some please, so sit back while I wonder my way through this latest offering from WEM.
 
What you get for your money are two brass frets of differing thickness and a set of instructions.

The instructions consist of nine pages of information for you to peruse and digest at your leisure.  Please read carefully, as this is a generic set that gives the modeller a choice of early or late fit options. On top of that 
Page nine includes the small print or as in this case fourteen further instructions, suggestions, ideas.
On page eight are two very useful plan views, one covers main deck railing location and the other hatch/skylight locations. The rest of the instruction booklet follows WEM’s usual high standard of pictograph and text format but should you find anything that you do not understand an email to them will result in a quick answer back.

Fret A, the largest and thinnest contains fifty parts, covered are railings inclined ladders, stock vertical ladders, funnel cap grilles and lots of 12pdr detail. The rest of this fret contains some nice items that will keep you busy for some time, coaling hatches galore to add that bit of depth and detail. So do you now decide to do a coaling diorama mmmmm?
Or how about the anti torpedo netting, net booms deployed or maybe netting rolled up and placed on the netting shelf, again so many options to think about. But while your thinking about that you can at least make a start and attach the two very nicely done anchor chain races.
Boat boom block and tackle, is again an option for you to choose from and will get you thinking. There is even a WT Ariel screen, nice touch that. Of major importance are the replacement 12pdr platforms but it does mean you’ll have ten of them to remove from the kit turrets first.
The remaining items consist of footropes for the mast spars, siren platform, accommodation ladders and stern platform options.

Fret B, this contains sixty-nine parts and includes all the varied types of hatch covers including the gun room hatches, close scrutiny of the plan view on page eight of the instructions is highly advised when locating these items. A full selection of boat thwarts and rudders, along with oars give plenty of scope for detailing options. All the relevant parts for the net shelving including davits are included on this fret. Along with anchor chain and loading davits.
The majority of the date related option parts are located here, these include planked compass platforms, Admirals sea cabin, foremast starfish, Fwd boat deck and search light platforms.
All the individual letters are also provided so that you can add the ship name in raised lettering at the stern. 

 
Any items that I would have liked but are not given, yes for me it is just one and that is star aerial spreaders.
 
This is a well thought out p/etch design that will enable the modeller to build and detail a fine model of Dreadnought.

Build options
In total you have six options on how you combine the kit with the p/etch
 
Early,
Underway, netting deployed whilst at anchor and coaling ship.
 
Late,
Underway, coaling ship and ramming U-boat.
 
What ever you choose to do have fun and don’t forget to send in your pictures to Finewaterline.