INWarD2026 Preview: Battle of the Denmark Strait

All participants for my planned International Naval Wargaming Day game are ready for combat. I have also written a short set of rules, where players declare their intentions before moving (which hopefully would result in a more interesting gameplay than just the plain move-shoot routine). Also PoW has to roll for random critical damage at the beginning of the game. 

I'll write up the AAR next week, stay tuned until then!

Pride of a Nation, A Beast Made of Steel etc. etc.

 

I can't recall a more overdone topic in naval history circles than the Bismarck, both the ship and its operational history, even though I could recount, just on a whim, about ten different battleships that had a more interesting or successful career (including the Tirpitz and the Scharnhorst class [no, those were not battlecruisers]).

 

But there's no stopping the Bismarck fanboyism, and that may perhaps be one of the main reasons building her (yes it's a her) for my Battle of the Denmark Strait project took about two years. That's a lot of time for a 1/2000 model, even in scratchbuilding terms. 

Alas, taking some time off from the Aurora and managing a complete paintjob on a 1/700 interwar fit waterline Nagato, I took out the hulls of the Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen (no, they are not DKM Bismarck and DKM Prinz Eugen), and built the superstructures.

When building such models, one must cut a lot of corners. Some of the details you simply won't see. Some have to look just about right from a distance. The main visual cues for the ships must be there, but otherwise it's more or less free reign. That's why I like WW1 era German battleships for instance: very little deck clutter, very effective, streamlined designs. I procrastinated with this project because I was overwhelmed with all the bits and bobs on a WW2 battleship's superstructure, so in the end I just went at it and made things on the go.

The ships' hulls and other larger pieces are made from 3mm and 2mm balsa (1mm on the top layers of the Prinz Eugen), and they are built using the layer or sandwich method, where I construct things from the waterline up. The balsa is stiffened and filled with liquid CA glue and acrylic paste. The turret rings on the Bismarck are small rubber rings bought at a craft store (apparently for making children's necklaces). The rest is placticard (0.5mm and 2mm), plastic bits from leftovers (such as a 28mm Mongol spear), paperclips, the cranes on the Bismarck are Perry sword sheaths and on the Prinz Eugen they are stolen from a 1/700 Derfflinger, and her floatplane is from an old plastic anchor.

Since taking the above photo I made the Bismarck's prow a bit more pointy (she resembled the Iowa class' crocodile prow a bit too much) and added the visually important large flying bridge. You will be able to see those when the models are painted and based.

The deadline for this project is InWarD 2026, as I missed the anniversary of the battle (again). Until then, it's peacetime readiness for the completed PoW and Hood.

Proud of PE

This is just a short post to let you know I'm working on the Snowman Model 1/700 scale SMS Derfflinger (post-Jutland full hull version), and I think I'm starting to get the gist of properly placing photoetched parts.

Most of the ship is going to be built straight out of the box, but the three bar rails around the bridge are third party, first shaped, then primed and painted, glued in place, and finally touched up a bit.

The fun thing is I'm going to cover all of that in canvas, as per the reference image I posted earlier on this blog, but it's still satisfying to know that all that brass is there.

I'm going to add a few more ladders and staircases once this subassembly is placed on the hull (as some of those connect it to the aft funnel, there is no point in doing them right now).

So no, PE this time does not mean physical education.

Derfflinger Details

I'm building a Snowman Model 1/700 SMS Derfflinger, the post-Jutland version. Here are some reference pictures - mostly so I could find them, but it might interest others.

I'm not sure of the images' sources as I've collected way too many of them to keep track, but being period photos more than a hundred years old, I don't believe that would cause any copyright hassle.

This is an aerial photo made just after Jutland I believe. It is important for two things: this is the only period photo I could find where the aerial recognition rings on all the turrets are visible, and the damage made to the aft section can also be seen (this was planked over later, but the new boards used for the job remained dark for a while). I can safely extrapolate and say that A and D turret had a narrower, B and C a thicker white ring, and this remained in use later.

This is the image I'm mostly after, except I added magic sculpt blast bags to the main battery, because the brass barrels did not quite fit snugly so I had to cover their ends. Photos made later (with the much more pronounced tripod), especially those during her internment show blast bags, but none before, so it must have been added later, but I will overlook this inaccuracy for aesthetic reasons.

Also, the kit has torpedo booms and nets, but it is very obvious that by the time of this photo it fell completely out of use.

Here's a thing that is not shown on period pictures and is rather hard to decide. The painting instructions that came with the kit, and also most non-period references (of other models also) show a boot top (the black band near the waterline, above the anti-fouling red). However, here's a picture of Seydlitz which is rather clear on the fact that she drew a lot deeper than the level of the anti-fouling paint (see the line of chipped off grey above it), and had no boot top. It is safe to assume that belonging to the same unit within the Hochseeflotte, the Derfflinger was painted using the same method - or at least that 's what I will do with mine. Dark red and black are pretty difficult to discern from black and white photos anyway.

1/500 SMS Seydlitz WIP #2

Since the last post way back when, I've completed some improvements over this build. 

Shapin' the Seydlitz

I've had some more free time recently, so I delved into this build. I worked a little on the core of the ship's hull, which should be 22mm tall with an added 2mm deck. It is a composite of 2x10mm and 1x2mm layers. I roughly shaped the bottom and sides, but more should be done once higher tiers of the hull (the casemate gundeck and the upper deck) are built. 

You can see the steel slabs installed for ballast; she must be back-weighted a little because the forward superstructure sits a lot higher and is more crammed.

It's time to get more rough sandpaper, because currently I'm not very content with how the fore and aft parts of the hull are looking.

Battlecruisers Operational

 

This is the last few pieces of my balsa, the first four Imperial German battlecruisers, from top to bottom: Von der Tann, Moltke, Goeben and Seydlitz. VdT and Seydlitz have composite hulls of 1mm and 2mm balsa layers. They are fierce looking ships and assembling them was a great experience, grinding away some quarantine time. I'd like to do an 1/500 scale swimming model of the Seydlitz in the near future, so this was good practice as well.

The Royals

Here are the following nine units of the German High Seas Fleet: the Kaiser- and König-class battleships. With this, Friegland takes the lead in the naval arms race on the eastern continent. 

They are splendid ships and I like how their colour scheme turned out. Slowly but surely a Jutland project is realising in my mind...

The Badens should be late, as my 3mm balsa supply has run out and no more can be found within the country... I might be able to make thinner slices and make a composite though. This could be used for French battleships and armoured cruisers.

 

Bath Tub Kaiserliche Marine

I just wanted to have some entertainment, so I bashed together a wooden mock-up of a Derfflinger-class battlecruiser. It's about 1:750 scale, but nothing is to scale really, the superstructure is exaggerated and a bit shortened, but it looks the part, and I had fun building it.

It is made to be watertight, and the turrets pivot. When I have finished painting it, there will be a swimming test conducted.

I think I'll build some more stuff like this until my balsa lasts, but I'll return to the Novara project soon.

1/600 SMS Derfflinger WIP #5

Current parts count: 71 (hull: 5, gundeck: 54, turrets: 12)

I've added a central piece to the secondary batteries, which required some sanding before I was content with the overall look of the thing. Then I cut the two ends of the lower tier of the superstructure and coated them with wood filler. When assembled, these will receive a top layer of 1mm balsa wood, in part for consistency, and also because this deck also has a visible sheer, the forward part starts at 5mm height from the deck, and it ends at 4mm.

Next I did some work on the turrets, the main pieces being made from 4mm balsa, finished using lots of wood filler, PVA and grey paint; and then I attached the brass gun barrels, which are intended for a 1/700 scale Bismarck, but fit perfectly as 1/600 scale 12" guns. I think I'll cover the turret tops with paper for a smooth surface, and then attach the commander's cupolas. I made a small stamping device with which I'll be able to add the air recognition markings on the turret tops. Also, the sides received a layer of card for the visible outlines of the armor belt.

I'm taking on this project with little increments, but this is already a lot done for the day. Stay tuned!

The Imperial German Navy expands

Here's a continuation for the Nassaus, four Brandenburg-class pre-dreadnoughts of little fighting value but great style, the Helgoland-class battleships which are actually worth something, and the ill-fated armored cruiser Blücher. All models are made using 1, 2 and 3mm balsa wood strips, bamboo and 0.5mm steel wire. Painting is also standard, with a buff undercoat, a layer of grey, blocking in the deck tan and some highlights here and there.

1/600 SMS Derfflinger WIP #4 - Suffering with the Secondaries

Current parts count: 55 (Hull: 3, Secondary casemates: 52)

As I mentioned in the previous post, the secondary casemate batteries are a pain in the bum to complete. After some hesitation, I set myself on the task. This required looking at reference pictures a lot, then drawing some sketches, after which I finally became enlightened and found a procedure to do this correctly. (While looking for different angles on the secondaries, I also found out that a major feature, the ring preventing spent casings to roll under the turret, does not appear on my blueprints, so a point for historical references.)

The method chosen for the Viribus Unitis was way too simplistic, which showed on the model - I'm never going to make that mistake again. 

1/600 SMS Derfflinger WIP #3 - Let the Woodworking Begin!

Honestly I kind of had a 'block' because I had no idea how to properly shape the main deck. Finally I just sat down and measured the blueprints in 2cm slices to have the exact height from the waterline. Then I sanded the sides of the hull to shape, with the top view plans clamped to where the deck should be.

I've been using 100 grit sandpaper and a wooden sanding block to do the job, this would be increased gradually to 1000 grit or so. Learning from the Bretagne and Viribus Unitis builds, it is very important to sand each piece between layers of filler/primer/paint to have a truly smooth surface.

1/600 SMS Derfflinger WIP #2 - The Shopping List!

I've made little to no progress on the model, but I'm in the middle of writing a list of things to be purchased. So this post mostly serves as a guide for myself. For the sake of simplicity, I will not be making every tiny bit of detail by hand, and these things help a great deal. I'd really like to gout on this model and make it as accurate as possible.

I'm assisted by a new Dremel tool which I've got for my birthday, this should make some tasks such as cutting and sanding (especially the concave sanding at the bow) more time-effective and comfortable. I'm still going to have to do the sloping deck by hand, probably with a large sanding block.

So far my shopping list includes:

• 4mm balsa plank for the turrets and superstructure, also the boats (I'm going to try a more complex boat construction instead of single blocks of wood)
• Various girths of steel wire: 0,8mm for the secondary battery barrels and cranes, 0,5mm for the 88mm AA platforms, 1mm for the main battery barrels and masts. Fortunately these can be had for a small price.
• Pins or small brass nails used for wooden ship models, for coaling hatches
• 1/700 scale photoetched railings (upping my game a little bit here), there are some generic pieces out there that I can use, and I really hope the scale difference does not matter
• 15mm washers for the turret rings (either to be used as templates or glued on)
• 4/5mm dowels for the secondary casemates; 13-14mm dowels or pinewood rods for the stacks (may also be shaped out of balsa)
• 0,1 and 0,25mm rigging thread

Nassau-class battleships

We have just passed Jutland's anniversary, which is a good occasion to present four of the participants recently completed, the German Nassau-class dreadnoughts. Being Germany's first attempt at building such ships, they're not much to look at, but I liked building them anyway. The only setback was providing the 24 turrets for the four ships altogether. 

As usual, they are built using balsa wood, toothpicks, 0.5mm steel wire, broom bristles, and sit on an MDF base looted from Ikea before all this madness had begun. 

I'll be posting more ships in the near future, as some of my recent builds had not been shared yet.

SMS Derfflinger 1/600 WIP #1

If you thought I had too many projects at the same time, I've started work on the 1/2000 Espana class dreadnoughts, and also this. For a reminder, my last build has attracted some attention, you can find its results here. 

This time I'm doing a more iconic vessel, lead ship of the WW1 Imperial German Navy's last completed battlecruiser class, none other than (if you could not guess from the title) SMS Derfflinger. 

This is probably my favourite dreadnought era ship of them all, with an excellent battle record, also less of an ugly duckling than some of her contemporaries. 

Hobby Diary Post (Amidst COVID-19)

Hello dear readers, long time no see. This is slightly off topic, but I hope it will make sense in the end.

We have finished moving flats and we are in an overall safer and quieter place than before. The move could not have been timed better, because we have left behind the raging proles of our previous environment, where an early close at the local Lidl meant the beginning of The Hunger Games' new episode. I can't imagine the situation there now.

Just after we moved in and collected our first pieces of furniture, the first reports of the global virus hysteria began reaching Hungary. It took little time to identify the first contagions as well. 

Here's the thing though: the Hungarian medical services are understaffed, underpaid, and in general unprepared for dealing with the number of virus patients we are likely to see, where more advanced countires such as Italy had proven to be failing. While government news outlets made it an issue to point out at every possible occasion that the first proven patients were foreigners (Iranians to top it off), simultaneously they failed to diagnose Hungarian citizens arriving home from, amongst other places, Northern Italy, also elderly patients with coronavirus symptoms but no proven contact. At the time of writing this post, we are at 50 proven contagions, 2 cured and 1 death, but considering that neighbouring Slovakia with half of our population has more, well...

People are fighting it out over daily items- you may have heard from the mass TP buys in Australia, well here one of the home delivery guys told us that somebody just bought a literal metric ton of supplies, before there were more than 10 diagnosed patients in the country. This includes purchasing all the ANTIBACTERIAL disinfectants and surgery masks, which have no effect on the virus at all, but people with recent operations or chronic respiratory diseases can't get them because of all these idiots.

But there's good things amongst all the bad. We can shut ourselves in, avoiding almost all contacts. This affects most hobbyists and model makers around the world, as I found out in many Facebook groups, as they can launch themselves against the piles of plastic and paints bought earlier and finish them in good time.

I am between jobs currently, but we have enough reserves so I do not have to rush things, so I, too, can focus on some of my projects. In the picture above, you can see the semi-assembled Trumpeter 1/700 Bismarck, which I'm currently painting (finished adding the grey and washes, plus some smaller pieces like the seaplane and boats). I'll make a nice sea base for it as well and make it a display piece.

My further plans include building (at least) two versions of the MNF Bretagne in her 1935-40 refit, one ship in a bottle, and the other a desert diorama. I really like the tripod structure, and it could prove a nice challenge to reconstruct it using period photos and blueprints. Well, getting the blueprint on paper is also somewhat of a challenge currently, but I can manage. I also managed to finish Camus' The Plague just before the real large turd hit the fan and larger numbers of contagions began to surface.

So, we are fine (including the tiny pug), and I hope it will stay this way. I wish for the following period to be as trouble-free as it can for all of you.

1/2000 Derfflingers - complete

Here are the tiny ships painted and based. quite fine items they turned out to be - I really like how my scratchbuilding skills progressed since the building of my first balsa ships.

I followed a paint scheme readily available from the internet, and I must say these ships look sleek yet formidable. I chose 1/2000 over 1/2400 because the round number makes it easier to measure things - I make a 1/1000 scale plan based on available data, then a 1/2000 by reducing that one's size to half.

I used a high gloss oil-based varnish on the bases for the sea effect, and also painted the bases separately of the ships. 

Next up are the two members of the Nelson class, and then who knows, I've got blueprints for a dozen different kinds of ships now.

Tiny Derfflingers WIP

I've had more naval musings as of late, and to kill time, I've constructed all three members of the Derfflinger class in 1/2000 scale. They are actually quite large at 10.5cm (about 4") length in this scale.

Jagdpanther

I haven't had some of Zvezda's fresher 1/100 models, including their tank destroyers. I've felt a bit down with my painting and sought for something simple to do, so I bought a bunch of them now, including this Jagdpanther. 

I went with a dunkelgelb basecoat, reddish brown and dark green stripes, then a layer of highlights, a brown wash and a buff drybrush. The camo net is made of an old curtain, green tea and moss. The muzzle brake also broke off and has been replaced by a bit of dowel and green stuff.