Thank you all for your comments here, keep the Mojo high
I armed the ship with its first AA gun batteries. These are placed at the rearmost platform and at the aircraft hangar area. The crane was also spraypainted and the cables got painted in german dark grey
I also made all cable reels which were positioned all over the deck. I`ve lost the middle part of one cable reel forever to the carpet monster so I was obliged to build an empty one. The instructions and my book shows them in a light beige color. I would like to ask the educated audience a question here: Are these all firehoses at the reels or are there also some with just ropes? If ropes for what where they intended for?
Outstanding work again, Thomas! Those triple AA mounts really look the part, and your dry brushing is excellent!
As for your question, I can’t give you a definitive answer, just guessing - I’d think they are hose reels and cable reels, depending on where they are installed. You would need mooring lines at some place stowed on the forecastle and the stern, and I’d assume that this would be done on cabe reels on the upper deck. Some ropes will also be needed for boat operations. Reels away from these ‘maneuvering stations’ will likely be hose reels, on the higher decks, superstructure, amidships, like that. But to make this clear, I do not know, that’s only guessing and I may stand corrected from better experts on the Japanese fleet…
Some small update of my work of the recent evenings: I finished some small delicate parts (bollards, ammunition boxes, triple AA-guns for the aircraft deck, sisal bags for some splinter protection of the open AA guns) and railings for the ship´s rear area
I made it even more fiddlier as I decided to add the catapult cable inside the construction as it can be seen by closer inspection. It was made with streched sprue
Ammunition boxes added. One box was again lost to the nasty, in this build omnipresent carpet monster. Have to add this box when I make the other boxes for the main turrets etc. These Boxes are from WuLa and are also very nicely 3d-printed.
Some small progress today - this time in the truest sense of the word! We shortly switch from ship modelling to aircraft modelling
Most history writers state that Yamato didn´t carried any aircraft during her last mission. This is not completely true. At 06. april at the early morning US high altitude reconaissance aircraft pictured yamato at its refueling point at Tokuyama. There she carried two remaining Mitsubishi F1M2 Pete reconaissance biplanes of the ship´s own squadron fixed on the catapults. After cruising down the Bungo straits and off the Miyazaki coast into the open sea at around 6:AM at 07. april these planes were finally catapulted and conducted surveillance for Yamato against anticipated lurking enemy submarines until they finally returned home towards Kyushu.
This means in this specific time between departure and shortly before the discovery of Yamato by US reconaissance planes there were two F1M2 together with Yamato. Therefore I opted to show these planes resting at their catapult waiting for their last sortie aboard.
Many show the Aichi E13A Jake together aboard their Yamato. This is wrong as Yamato and also Musashi only ever had F1M2 Pete´s aboard. Funnily enough also Tamiya gives the modeller these Aichi Jakes together with the Petes but simultaniously explain that these aircraft were not carried aboard - I will use this planes and the PE-upgrades for my IJN Kongo battleship later as this ship did carried the Jakes
Tuning up this small plastic aircraft with quite some amount of etching parts was quite demanding. I drilled out the cockpits to get some depth but the etched cockpit interior and seats (a) were ommitted as these would be beyond my rudimentary skills in this scale
Unexplorably with no losses this time to the carpet monster; maybe the previous sacrificial offerings were adequate enough for the modelling gods …
This is what Rainbow models ask you to install to the plain plastic kit:
Its again made in 3d printed and of the usual outstanding quality; there is also a jig for drillng out the open space of the deck under these open doors
Already painted, drybrushed and positioned the new arrived open hatches. Together with some already at hand from WuLa I placed all of them already and it looks fine to me
Now just these four single AA guns left and right between the two forward main turrets and 10 triple AA-gun emplacements are missing then all the main deck details are finished and I can continue to the anchor chains at the ship´s bow
- I will use this planes and the PE-upgrades for my IJN Kongo battleship later as this ship did carried the Jakes 
