The Ship Model Forum

Hadn't noticed this before. Beautiful model and, like you said, a beautiful class of ships. Too bad you sold her. I sure hope her replacement is equally good looking!

Beautiful.

Really an enviable work! My compliments for your skill, I hope to see a your new work soon.
Laerte

This was my first serious attempt at building a 1:72 scale model warship.

She's a Soviet Navy Project 1135 Burevestnik (Krivak I) class antisubmarine ship. A favourite of all Soviet Navy enthusiasts the Krivaks are sleek and very pretty ships. The Soviet designers certainly ensured that despite their smaller size they could pack a massive punch with a formidable array of weapons.

There is a wide choice of ships to choose from in this class. I chose to do STOROZHEVOY because she was notorious for a politically motivated mutiny that occurred in 1975. It didn't end well for the mutineers but fortunately the ship herself survived in the Soviet/Russian Pacific Fleet until the mid 1990s before being scrapped.

I commenced building in Oct 2007 and she was completed Jul 2008. Allan Pew (APS Models) supplied the hull, running gear and several fittings.

She was 1.7m in length which made her small, fast and very enjoyable to drive. To be honest the completed model ended up being a 'fruit salad' of ideas and fittings from various ships across the class. True to the form of all Soviet ships - no two are ever the same and the Krivaks are no exception. I only have one photo of the real ship (which confirmed her pennant number towards the end of her life was 663) so I had to improvise a lot with the finer details and I also took a bit of artistic licence here and there. Also the model was built primarily to be transported around and sailed. Thus strength, simplicity and the ability to withstand damage and be easily fixable took the place of too much attention to the finer details. But I liked the end result all the same and had a great time building her.

Over the next two years or so I had a great time sailing the model in many locations and was fortunate to frequently be in the company of some truly exceptional models built by members of Task Force 72. I sold her in late 2010 to make way for new and bigger projects but she'll always be a bit special.

The photos below show the progression of the build to completion.