The Earth Defense Force (EDF) Unmanned Battleship was one of the first Bandai kits that I built (well over 10 years ago). It was done straight out of the box. The ship was designed to be a robot ship under the control of a command cruiser. The idea was to have a fleet ready for combat that didn’t involve training or risking large numbers of human crew members.

The 1:1000 scale kit has the thicker styrene common with kits that were produced in the early 1980’s, and you have to be careful when removing the parts as age has made the plastic a little brittle. The parts are cleanly molded, with very little flash, and feature engraved panel lines. A simple stand is included, which uses a tab-and-hole design to attach to the underside of the hull. The parts are molded in blue-gray styrene.

I used Model Master Intermediate Blue for the base coat, and Model Master Light Ghost Gray for the radar arrays. Testors Flat Red and Flat Black were used for the details. I dry-brushed the ship with Model Master Chrome Silver to make it look like it had been on the receiving end of more than its share of punishment.

When I finished the kit, it seemed like the ship needed some type of identification. After all, if you were operating a fleet of these things, you would need some way to figure out which ship was where during a battle. The decals were taken from an old 1:48 scale Panzer kit, but they seemed to be consistent with numbers seen on ships in Star Blazers episodes.

The completed kit measures about 10 inches in overall length.

Review by: Rich “Lonewolf” Dula

Entry Created: January 2, 2012




Completed model by Rich "Lonewolf" Dula