The Ship Model Forum

Nice detective work, excellent craftsmanship

Thanks for your nice comments, guys!

Some final pictures of the completed model:
Ships railings are not uniform: There are 2 and 3 rows of fixed tube railing, some of which are possible to fold down in order to provide firing at low angels for the main guns. Some has netting attached in order to prevent empty shell cases from going overboard.
There are also, mainly at the rear main deck, wire railings in combination with fixed tubed railing. All of this can very well be ignored on a 1:350 ship, but in 1:100 the model is so big that is both possible and, I think, correct to try to show all of the above as accurate as possible.

Depth charges are dropped from the two racks at the stern or/and from the two launchers at each side. Reserve charges are stored in cradles/ racks next to the launchers.

Finally, the structure holding the ships propellers away from quays etc: These parts were really crude and inaccurate so - labour intensive and had to be modified. As shown in the original picture, each structure had a “floor” with an access hatch making it able for the crew to get to the propellers, so “floor” and hatches also had to be made.

More pictures of this model will be posted at my pages at :

http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery ... index.html

Outstanding! I am in awe. Most excellent craftsmanship.
John

Beautiful, clean work! Something to aspire to. It's really difficult to build a museum grade model (no weathering, artistic license, etc) You did a great job!

Not my kind of ship, not my era...

BUT very inpressve good quality modelmaking!!!



Jim Baumann

The bridge
The parts were made from resin and some styrene. All in all, OK parts. Details were, however, missing and had to be made: There were no «doors» to the bridge or the rangefinder platform, no map-table, speaking-tubes and wiring, so it had to be made from scratch. Door handles made from brass wire .3mm.
All windows were «dremeled» out from the rear as the resin is far too thick and the windows are only depressions into the mould. Windows then made from Kristal clear.
Note the raised middle window in the front of the bridge: This is only found in ships Z9-13. All others have the windows in line.
Also, target designator night (to the rear of range-finder) was not included and had to be made.
Planking/crates was made from 0.8mm wood, which is too wide (8 cm in scale- compare to b/w photo, but cutting it narrower was not possible with my equipment.
Wipers on three of the bridge windows were made from .2mm copper wire (found in el. cable).
Supports for the bridge wings were 2D in the kit, so I decided to change them for brass tubing and wires cut to shape.
Same goes for antenna, footperts and flag line attachments: 0.3mm brass. Searchlight reflector made from putty shaped like a cone and painted silver. Lens made from Kristal clear.

Crow’s nest
Looks just like its name… Lots of wires and antennas for support and communications.
As this is 1:100 scale, I chose to just rigging thread for sailing ships and thinner, normal thread for the rest (I normal use stretched sprue for 1:350 / 1:400).
Insulators are in fact wooden casting blocks made from pear wood in the smallest possible size.
Lanterns (3 ea to the left) made from clear plastic sprue.

Boats cranes
These had, in the kit, supports attaching them to the superstructure close to the top. I have not been able to spot any such supports in any original photo, so I cut them off. El. Motor at the bottom rear of the cranes were also not included, but easily made from the parts bin
Brass pieces for the lifting mechanism were beautifully shaped and only needed paint!
All supports for the boats made from styrene sheet, pear wood and wire mesh.
Also note the much modified ships boat port.

Torpedo handling system: This was not included in the kit, so I had to build my own. Luckily I managed to find a few good pictures in the internet showing how the loading/unloading took place.

The torpedo is made from a solid piece of sprue and shaped by knife, sanding and plasticards.
The rest of the mechanism is made from styrene plastic, plasticard, sprue and smaller part from the parts bin, brass tubing and PE-frames cut and bent to shape.
Opening in the rear of the tubes drilled out, while all detail «installation»and instrumentation on top of the tubes were made from scratch/photo.

The main guns that were included in the kit were quite basic with little detail. So when more advanced guns were offered during the build process, the basic ones were skipped.
The more advanced kit included brass shields, barrels and smaller parts, plastic as well as resin parts. Shields had to be bent, soldered and filed to shape, but I think the result was worth it!
Turrets top were painted yellow as ordered by German Naval Staff for April 9th (repainted in red April 10th).

37mm AA guns were quite accurate in shape, but lacked detail. Lots of smaller parts such as loading mechanism, sights, wheels and support were made from scratch. All in all some 60+ parts for each gun!

Ammo was not included, so I decided to depict some of this from own production: Blue shell: AP, yellow: HE, green: ILL. Brass case with white top: Std charge. Long poles: Cleaning rod and loading rod.

The ship that sank NORWAY!?

Upon entering the port of Narvik in a snowstorm at daybreak, the German destroyers where ordered to stop by the Norwegian coastal defence ship Eidsvoll. An obsolete ship, Eidsvoll’s heavy 21 cm guns were still capable of blasting a destroyer of the water. After a short stop where the Germans were ordered to leave Norwegian waters, the German lead destroyer, without further warning, torpedoed the Eidsvoll which sank in 15 seconds, taking all but 6 sailors to the bottom.
The invasion continued, and now as the cover was broken, the German destroyers raced toward the harbour to land the 200 Gebirgsjäger (Mountain troops) carried by each ship.
They found the pier in the storm, and Z2 Georg Thiele as first, and Z11 as the second, started launching their troops. Upon doing so, Z11 came under fire by the second Norwegian Coastal Ship, the Norge (Norway).
A few hundred meters apart, the gun crew were unable to spot the enemy in the snowstorm and low visibility, so the rounds did not hit! Z11 on his side, fired back also without hitting, and after a few minutes launched a salvo of 7 torpedoes of which at least 2 were hits.
Norge rolled over and sank in the harbour basin.
276 Norwegian sailors were killed in the short engagements, and the surprise attack was a success.
Z11 Bernd von Arnim was credited the sinking of Norge.

Then to something more nice: Ships boats. Included in the kit was to similar large boats - which is wrong. Teere should be two, but normally of different different types.
So one needed much modification. Except there should be two different types. So modification needed!These sub-kits are easilly worked. Goes togethet well and consist of cast-resin hulls, some metal, some plastic and some wooden parts.

The windows and portholes were made from clear plastic cut to shape and glued in with wkite glue.

Attacking the deck to the hull:
The hull is made from fiberglass while the deck is cast resin. Also, the hull is too wide, so it has to be squeezed together by strong tape.
No step/ledge is moulded in the fiberglass, so strips from balsa wood must be glued in. Quite challenging to get right as the angle between the hull is not constant 90 degrees. So the balsa was carefully cut to shape to give support for the deck.
Before final fixing/gluing, 0.4 mm holes were drilled for the stanchions.
After gluing, all openings were filled with putty before the joints were sanded.

The deck itself also needed to be modified. The final picture below shows some of the work. In the end I decided to cut all of this away (neither accurate nor correct) and build the structures from scratch as will be seen in later pictures.

Some say… that the eagle emblems of the ships of the Kriegsmarine was removed when the war started. Well: Yes! – and No!
As can be seen in this photo from the Red Cross Museum in Narvik, at least the destroyers carried their eagles on the bridge fronts in April 1940!

Beauty model, plus great subject.

I also needed to cut out openings for the anchors, prop shafts, waste water, moorings etc. As I did not have any info regarding water in-outlets for the turbines, I had to skip these. Luckily, the wreck of Z2 and an old wreck photo of Z11 is available, so this is not too difficult to position the havsepipes correctly.

The anchors are masterfully manufactured! From the wreck photos of Z2 and the picture of the scuttled Z11, the position of the haws pipes and cut-out I the bow for the moorings can be defined and position quite right!

Then it’s sanding time! Put on putty and sand away! It’s also smart to use putty to form passages for the anchors to the deck. This will make it much more easy to install anchors and chains in the future!

This is a tiring job, but lots of effort here will make a great difference in the end!

Looking at those photos, this kit is impressive!! The finished model looks amazing! More please!!

Aop

Very nice. I am feeling a bit like Oliver Twist... I want some more please!

The hull: Made from fiberglass, it requires a lot of work compared to a plastic hull. The position of all portholes are marked onto the hull and needs to be drilled out. Plugs of aluminium is included in the set for this, but as their diameter are 3mm inside, they are best discarded! Why – because a couple of years ago, I “inspected” one of the wrecks still in place in Narvik area – namely the Z2 Georg Thiele. And as you can see from my hand, the dimension in 20 cm – not 30 cm which is more the double area (Revell made the portholes on their latest Zerstörer in 1:350 to something close to 50 cm!!!).
I bought alu tubes with internal diameter 2mm, cut into pieces and glued them to the hull with 2K glue. The rest is lot and lot of sanding to make everything level.
As glass is decided to use 2mm plastic rods cut into pieces and push them in place (after painting…).

Well, let’s start with something nice: The funnels!
Made from 2K-material, they are easy to work on. Precision drilling is needed to fix the supports for the foot-bars. Support are made from 2D brass. The rails are made from .3mm brass thread making them 3cm thick compared to scale. No too far off, I think.
Bending the thread around corners is difficult. You may soften the tension in the thread by carefully heating it.
The tubes around the funnels are included in the set in different thicknesses. But all of them are strait – which is wrong! I carefully bent sprue / stretched sprue to match and glued them to the straight tubes.
The number of tubes and thickness are, buy the way, different from individual ships in the 1934A-class and need to be studied on photos of the specific ship you are building.

You may also notice the windows in the superstructure: The thickness of the part is 2mm, and the openings itself is not open - only depressed into the material. So the openings need to be carefully drilled / filed down to appropriate sice from the inside. Windows are made at a later stage.

Colour for the finished funnels are: DKM 50 Hellgrau from Lifecolor, the screens are painted in a mix of silver / grey to look like worn aluminium.

April Storm!
During the invasion of Norway, Z11 was, together with 9 other destroyers, assigned to Attack Force 1, target Narvik in Northern Norway. On its way, in heavy seas outside the Norwegian coast, Z11 had mechanical problems and occasionally stumbled upon the enemy destroyer HMS Glowworm which it engaged – against all orders. As Z11 was top heavy it did not manage to hit its opponent in the rough seas. Neither was the smaller Glowworm.
The action ended when Admiral Hipper, a heavy cruiser and lead ship from Attack Force 2 Trondheim, appeared on the scene and sank Glowworm. But not until Glowworm managed to ram the cruiser and nearly stopping the cruiser from carrying out its main objective – the capture of Trondheim.
The captain of Glowworm was awarded the VS posthumously. The captain of Z11, Kurt Rechel was given a sharp reprimand. Exciting?: Read the book “April Storm”.