Calling all Kriegsmarine Prinz Eugen, Admiral Hipper & Blücher fans

[Olaf Held]

G'day, all. Well, I am certainly into Germany's Heavy cruiser the Prinz Eugen. I haven't yet started, however, I do have a hull and accessories of a 1/100 Prinz Eugen. I can tell you that I am so much looking forward in starting the big job at hand in working with Prinz Eugen.
My idea in building this wonderful ship, and I must agree with one of the comments that I read that she is the "Lucky Ship" and she is an absolute beautiful ship.
I have so many drawing plans in 1/100 of Prinz Eugen, the era I am going to build Prinz Eugen is when she had accompanied her big giant sister Bismarck during the Baltic Sea Campaign Trials. Prinz Eugen will be no doubt be painted in the famous black and white stripes on the date of May 19th, 1941.
The drawings aren't giving me what I need and that is the deck planking, the drawings are just showing continuous lines all the way along the drawings. Has anyone have any ideas what the 1:1 scale of Prinz Eugen's deck planks were? I need and idea what the actual lengths of the planks so that I can measure from the 1:1 to 1:100 scale.
My planning of Prinz Eugen's deck planking will be heavily stained and dirty, as I can never see ship decks plain and clean.
Another question for any Prinz Eugen/Admiral Hipper fan. Does anyone know what kind of depth charge gun Prinz Eugen had on board at the aft end of the ship.
I know what kind of question is this, Prinz Eugen having depth charges? My model of Prinz Eugen in the 1/100 will be fitted with the depth charges as she was fitted during the Baltic Sea Campaign, however, I need to know what kind of depth charge gun she carried when she had used it during the Battle of the Denmark Strait Campaign. Apparently, her charges were fired into the air, then exploded once in the water at a depth.
If anyone knows about what kind of depth charge gun she had much appreciated.
Hint of information; During the Battle of the Denmark Strait, with the Bismarck, Hood and Prince Of Wales, Prinz Eugen was I believe either she was 50 or 100 miles in front of Bismarck's wake. During the battle of Bismarck, Hood and Prince Of Wales, Prinz Eugen fired depth charges at the stern causing water sprays to confuse and put of the British Fleet. There is some very interesting peace of information.
If anyone can answer those questions above or can help out with those questions, much appreciated.


Thank You
Peter

Now that's quite a project, Peter...

As to your question about the deck planking I have nothing really useful with regard to PG but I've read somewhere that at least BS' planks had the dimensions of 5000 x 150mm on the main deck. (The length seems to be too large...) Another source stated only 100mm/130mm in width.

I don't think they used very different dimensions on the Heavy Cruisers and of course, it depends on what you can handle in 1/100...

Depth charges ~ As far as I know, they didn't have a "gun" to deploy the depth charges. PG had a triple 'rack' on either side of the stern. Unlike Hipper's, PG's two racks where different in design and I guess during the Baltic trials covered with canvas. It is believed that at least on PG the racks changed position a few time, from stern to more midships to the stern back again. Check photos for this. I think, they could deploy them with a switch on the bridge. The photos I know are bad in quality and I can't figure out how those racks worked ~ maybe they just lifted one end and simply rolled the DCs overboard?

Share photos of your project,

Best ~ Olaf

[Olaf Held]

Hi all ~ Small update:

Funnel (in progress):


Aft superstructure (before/in progress)



Forward superstructure (in progress):


The model, dry-stacked, still a lot of painting and detailing to do...:


Best ~ Olaf

[Mr. Grumpy]

Nice work.


Where did the vent grills come from?

[haloeight]

Olaf -

Aiming at a 1943-Early 44 fit.

[Olaf Held]

@ Mr. Grumpy ~ The vent grills are from a P/E-railing spare box. Unpainted, they look a bit silly as they are not flush with the bulkhead but when painted grey with the 'openings' blackened, the look is quite convincing.

@ haloeight ~ 1943/1944? Great! I bookmarked your thread in order to follow your updates. Seems like we have a 'BTSK' here (Build The Same Kit...)... hehehehe

Happy Modelling ~ Olaf!

[rtwpsom2]

Have you seen this yet?

http://www2.stevenshobby.com:5641/ scroll down do TSM-5313:

TSM-5313 1/350 Prinz Eugen German Heavy Cruiser $0.00 TBA

A 1/350th PE from Trumpeter!

***edit***

Oops, frames issue. Go to stevens and look up thier trumpeter page, then scroll down to TSM-5313.

[Sean Hert]

Yep- there's a thread on this already;

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=37362

[Kazec]

Hi, all

I am building the Tamiya 1/700 Prinz Eugen of 1941. Here is my in-progress photo:



According to the 1945 photo below, there are bulges with splinter at the flanks of the deckhouse after the main mast.



But the Tamiya kit does not have the bulges.



Since I cannot find clear early war picture of this deckhouse. My question is whether this bulges were late-war addition. Do I need to make modification on my 1941 Prinz Eugen?

Thanks!

[Olaf Held]

Hi Kazec ~ It's really hard to see on photos but I think they were there during 'Rhein�bung'...

Furthermore, make sure that your two fwd AA directors do NOT feature their domed tops - a common mistake on pre-Channel Dash PG models. They were added in Brest between Rhein�bung and the Channel Dash.

Then, main turrets "A" and "D" featured ladders only on one side - another common mistake on many PG models...

And... last but not least... the boats directly aft of the funnel were removed in favour of torpedo storages...

I will share latest progress on my PG soon...

Happy Modelling ~ Olaf!

[Kazec]

Hi, Olaf, thanks for your inspring information! I never noted the domed top issue. Thanks a lot!

For the gun director issue, was there a gun director behind the splinter on top of the LV4 bridge at that period?

[Olaf Held]

I really don't know. In some photos there is a 'something' but I don't know what I'm looking at, esp. in the one stb photo showing the Baltic camouflage in great detail.. If there was a rangefinder and you look through it, then I think it would have been possible to just peek over that splinter shield.

Then, have a look at the fwd facing searchlight platform above the Admiral's bridge. Tamiya put in the post-Brest version, the one with the solid bulwark - but we need the one with the railing (+dodgers)...

Edit:
Here's my Prinz, nothing big happened during the previous month... all of the fwd superstructure in progress:



(needs a few paint touch-ups here and there and I'm not really satisfied with the paint job on the Admiral's bridge...but hey... it's my first 1/700...)




Best ~ Olaf!

[Kazec]

Hey, Olaf, we are building the same subject! Nice progress!
The camouflage is a painful job, isn't it. I saw that you painted the LV 3 bridge in wood colour. Was it not in steel? Actually I am quite confused where should be wood or steel on the ship. The kit's wood pattern scribing seems not very reliable. Do you have informaiton on that?

[Olaf Held]

Do you have informaiton on that?

Yes, I have.

Main deck: teak, except for the very tip of the bow (presumably painted hull colour RAL 7000), Tamiya is correct on this one.

LV1: teak, except for the middle part stretching between the tall AA directors ==> Dunkelgrau 1 (RAL 7016 which was the same hue ==> RAL 7016 as the dark grey boot-topping), Tamiya is correct on this one.

LV2: teak, except for the deck aft of the bulwark surrounding the fwd 3.7 AA gun and the area around the catapult and hangar ==> RAL 7016, Tamiya is correct on this one.

LV3: bridge deck: RAL 7016, but covered with grated removeable deck panels. On my model this is a PE-deck from the Flyhawk set, very neat, it's really 'grated'. The wooden panels stretched as far aft as the aft transversal of the surrounding bulwark.

LV3: aft superstructure: the area aft (or around) of the armored after control station is unknown to me, the kit suggests wood. The area where your splinter shields from your initial question are located was steel (RAL 7016) but covered with slatted wood panels. The Signal Deck (aft, beneath the main mast) was steel but covered with grated deck panels.

LV 4: fwd superstructure only from now on: where the half-round splinter shield is - and this is still wrong on my model - was steel deck as well, but covered with slatted wood panels.

Signal Deck aft of Admiral's Bridge: RAL 7016, but covered with grated deck panels.

Foretop gallery: RAL 7016 but covered with slatted deck panels.

Colour of removable deck panels:
The grated ones are said to having been in such a brown colour you see on my model.
The slatted ones were presumably of a beige-ish colour, darker than the teak of the main deck.

My model will not feature the Baltic camouflage as I'm depicting the ship on May 22, in preparation of leaving Norway and friendly air cover.

With regard to the different shades of grey - and I can smell questions about it coming - for your 'time window' you will need four of them, beginning from the lightest to darkest:

RAL 7001 = Hellgrau 50 ==> superstructure
RAL 7000 = Dunkelgrau 51 ==> hull
RAL 7024 = Dunkelgrau 2 ==> 'splinter-type' camouflage on parts of the superstructure, turrets and barrels while wearing the Baltic Camouflage. Turret tops (horizontal + sloped sides, if not red), other certain horizontal surfaces such as the bridge roof or the hoods of the range finders and conning towers - I'm not sure about the hangar roof...
RAL 7016 = Dunkelgrau 1 ==> steel decks and boot-topping


Happy Modelling ~ Olaf

[Kazec]

Very detailed study. Thanks a lot Olaf!

[Kazec]

my PE finally finished. Special thanks to Olaf for his generous advices.









This build is indeed for the "Flyhawk Cup" competition on the SonicModel.com forum. More photos can be found at : http://www.sonicmodel.com/topicdisplay. ... ID=2451371 or http://forum.hknma.com/showthread.php?p=11374

[Olaf Held]

Nice Prinz, Kazec...

One last thing: I'm not quite sure about the dark grey flat turret top together with the red angled surfaces. I noticed this on the Tamiya box photos and wondered where they got it from. The dark grey would have made easier air-recognition (of the red) much more difficult...

I like the greenish colour of the floatplane - what did you use? Looks good in this scale...

Olaf!

[NASAAN101]

Guys,
She cool, no, two ways about it.. RIP Lucky Girl...
Nikki

[TCinLA]

I just received the new Trumpeter 1/350 Prinz Eugen. I can tell you this - the hull upper and lower fits better than any Trumpeter kit I have done yet - I mean right together, no putty, no Mr. Surfacer, no nothing! I am taking this as a good sign.

The quality of the kit looks excellent. I like Trumpeter's Arado Ar-196 over the ones from the Revell Bismarck, except the Revell kit gives it to you with the wings folded as an option (which doesn't actually matter with this kit).

The kit says it's the 1945 fitting, but I have yet to find a lot of difference in photos for the 1941 vs. 1945 other than radar fit and such. The stern that was replaced doesn't look different to me (but being primarily an airplane modeler I could be very very wrong).

Anyway, I always thought all-big-gun cruisers were great (having served in USN when I got to see the last all-gun Baltimore and the USS St. Paul - god would I love to see 1/350 kits of those two) I have always though Prinz Eugen was one very beautiful cruiser, so I am very happy to have this "big" kit.

With the attention to production design, I am definitely looking forward to the Admiral Graf Spee next month.

[karl]

It was rumored that the kit would come with 3 PE frets, is that the case?

[tomcat Fanatic]

I have this kit on order, so it is looking good.