Italian Heavy Cruiser Zara

Davide Vitali
The kit is an overall good kit, but beware: you'll have to work a bit. The kit gives you an hybrid version of the settings the ship has had between its initial configuration and that in 1938 - 1939, when secondary armament was changed. Furthermore, Italian ships started taking those distinctive red/white forecastle markings only after July, 1940, when this cruiser got other AA and a couple of illuminating shell guns installed... In any case, the main structure is missing the Admiral's bridge. For a non-casual approach, an extensive research is necessary as there are not many free sources lying around for this ship. Some dry-fitting is strongly recommended before applying glue. About the suggested colors, they're just wrong, the only one they got quite good is the light grey for vertical walls. Dark blue navy color for the main decks is PLAIN WRONG, it's a dark grey, more like an XF-24. The green mixture for lower hull in Vallejo (and maybe other manifacturers too) is inverted, should be 9 parts of black-green and 1 part of park green. The wooden deck in the instructions is basically tan orange-brown, but it should be very light, a slight lighter than the Tamiya XF-78 Wooden Deck Tan.

Spaturnio
I have both, this Zara and the Old Pola 1/350 from Trumpeter. This Zara in NOT an updated Pola but is a completely new tool extremely faithful to the real ship. There is no relation with the old kit.