Calling all Bismarck and Tirpitz fans

[Thomas E. Johnson]

I did the rigging. I followed the kit's instructions. I'm sure the rigging of the real ship was more intense, but I'm afraid if I over do it, it will look out of scale and cluttered, since the rigging is concentrated in a moderate sized area. Plus many of the points where the rigging attaches to are fragile, and I don't want to put more strain on them if I can avoid it. I used very fine clear smoke nylon filament for rigging. Now its onto ships boats and the plane.

[Olaf Held]

As far as I can tell from photos, the four small (rowing-) boats (cutters?) on the MAIN deck were gone.

Best ~ Olaf

[amiers]

All of the boats were present during her sortie, but slightly shuffled compared to most models. Details here, showing what goes where.

Even when a ship is repainted or brand new, I would add a wash anyway for the scale effect of the light on the model.

One of the Admiral's barge's was never on the ship (starboard). the other was moved up and down. none of the cutters were on the main deck during Rhein�bung.

[Charlestonguy]

amiers
Is this configuration correct for the boats on the 22-23 May breakout?

[amiers]

if you go here http://www.bismarck-class.dk/shipmodels ... sheim.html. this is as close to perfect as you will get for Bismarck at the time your looking at, 24th may. the boat positions can be seen. i have done a lot of reshearch into Bismarck and as far as i can find this model is the benchmark. with the exception of the Joeseph Kaiser model

[Charlestonguy]

if you go here http://www.bismarck-class.dk/shipmodels ... sheim.html. this is as close to perfect as you will get for Bismarck at the time your looking at, 24th may. the boat positions can be seen. i have done a lot of reshearch into Bismarck and as far as i can find this model is the benchmark. with the exception of the Joeseph Kaiser model

Thanks for confirming that model, that�s the one I have used for most of the build so far.

[Antonio Bonomi]

Ciao all,

if anyone wants to take a Bismarck model for reference than Josef Kaiser one is the best in the world, guaranteed .

You can find his 2 books on Bismarck and on his model on the internet.

http://www.bismarck-class.dk/miscellane ... eview.html

Few persons in the world can match Herr Josef Kaiser when the discussion is about Bismarck details.

Bye Antonio

[amiers]

Ciao all,

if anyone wants to take a Bismarck model for reference than Josef Kaiser one is the best in the world, guaranteed .

You can find his 2 books on Bismarck and on his model on the internet.

http://www.bismarck-class.dk/miscellane ... eview.html

Few persons in the world can match Herr Josef Kaiser when the discussion is about Bismarck details.

Bye Antonio

Antonio, do you know of any pictures of that model on the internet?

[Thomas E. Johnson]

I made a big boobo and went to strip the paint off of the main gun turrets of my Revell 1/350 Bismarck because I felt I had the paint to thick. The paint stripper said it was safe for plastic, yet it melted (more like vaporized!!!) my gun turrets. Fortunately I was able to dig out my old Tamiya kit and snatch the gun turrets out of that and they look pretty good after adding some PE ladders and other details to them and painting them up. However to properly mount them on the model I need replacement parts for the Revell kit for the bottom plates of all 4 main gun turrets (part 273, need 4 of them) so I can modify them to fit into the Tamiya turrets. Is it possable to order replacement parts from Revell, and how if yes, or does anyone here have some extra sets of these that they can spare?

[Antonio Bonomi]

Ciao all,

@ Amiers,

No, Herr Josef kaiser do not have any model photo on the internet, he made a book about his model and it is very good to have it to make a Bismarck detailed model.

I had the previlege to have spent one evening with him looking at his model and talking Bismarck.

Another must to have about Bismarck are Mr. Hans Gally detailed drawings on 1 / 100 scale.

Bye Antonio

[Charlestonguy]

Question on deck stantions
If you notice the stantions are missing in the photograph. Did they lay these down in the track along the edge of the deck when in combat, and was this true from stem to stern?

[rtwpsom2]

Yes and yes. Though sometimes they were caught with their pants downs and their stanchions up, and they were able to fight anyway. Some areas of Kriegsmarine ships had areas of rail and stanchions that were made out of pipe or steel rod, but these were in areas that did not have deck guns. They were welded in place and did not lower. This is especially common in upper works around walkways and platforms. Bismarck's entire deck rail was the hinged type stanchions, however and could be lowered very quickly.

[Charlestonguy]

Thanks Rob
With that we can conclude to properly depict the Bismarck at the Battle of the Denmark Strait and the finial battle all deck stations should be down?

[Thomas E. Johnson]

What was the reason for removing the rails in combat?

[Olaf Held]

Question on deck stantions
If you notice the stantions are missing in the photograph. Did they lay these down in the track along the edge of the deck when in combat, and was this true from stem to stern?

Yes and NO. At least not for PG. It took me some time to figure out that not the entire length of the main deck featured foldable railings. There were sections of railings that were not of the fold-down type.

But since this thread is devoted to BS/TP, I'm pretty sure the entire length of their main deck railing was foldable...

Happy modelling ~ Olaf!

[rtwpsom2]

I am more of a technical guy than a historical one so I would say yes to the Denmark Straight question as long as they had a few minutes to prepare for battle. As for why they fold them down, the deck guns most often traversed out over the edge of the deck so it was to keep the guns from fouling in them. The other reason would be so you don't accidentally shoot through them.

[Olaf Held]

I am more of a technical guy than a historical one so I would say yes to the Denmark Straight question as long as they had a few minutes to prepare for battle.

As far as I know, PG's railings were down since they left Norway, at least they had safety ropes on tripod-stanchions on f'c'sle and quarter deck. All the BS-photos I have, from the battle or shortly afterwards, are too blurry to tell if BS had her railings down as well.

I remember having seen SH or GU firing (at Glorious?) with the f'c'sle railings up!

Happy modelling ~ Olaf!

[Charlestonguy]

Another question this time about AA guns. I noticed in the Big Ed's set for the Revell kit that two AA guns next to the aft radar had shields. The gun base in the Revell kit is also different from any of the references and most of the other models I have seen. (See Picture from Eduards web site)
So my question is for the Denmark Straight did the Bismarck have the shielded guns or were they single MG C/30's or none at all?

[Gernot]

Holy cow, those look like 37mm or 40mm singles there. Very odd! I thought I was looking at Prinz Eugen 1945 for a moment.

[Charlestonguy]

nope it's Bismarck
http://www.eduard.cz/products/card_main ... age_start=