Airfix's new 1:1200 Sink the Bismarck model set ... and mine. :-)

[LouCoatney]

Some here may be aware that Airfix is coming out with a 7-model, 1:1200 (100 feet per inch) set of ships involved in the Bismarck battles: Bismarck, Prinz Eugen, Ark Royal, Hood, Suffolk (heavy cruiser), and 2 Tribal (as in HMS Cossack, Maori, Sikh, and Zulu) class destroyers. It has been advertized as coming out in April, but May is the 70th anniversary. (The classic film Sink the Bismarck should be on TV regularly, I would think, although Bismarck did not sink a destroyer the night before her final battle.)

Not included (and never produced at this scale by Airfix) are battleships Rodney, King George V, (and her sistership) Prince of Wales, heavy cruisers (and sisterships ... fortunately) Norfolk and Dorsetshire, the Polish J/K/N class Piorun, and other Tribals.

Well, I have been staying up to all hours working on those. I have completed the basic designs - the KGVs' bridge and quadruple gun turrets, let alone those twin 4.7" destroyer turrets! - are NOT as simple as they may appear. On their grey hull sides and sterns - the latter tricky, because the hullsides join at the stern as well as bow - I have in white the destroyers' Gnn pennant numbers: G03 for Cossack, G65 for Piorun, etc. I envision a set of 14 ships on 4 size A4 colored sheets. Rodney (and bonus sistership Nelson), KGV and Pow, Norfolk, and Dorsetshire, and 8 destroyers.

I have even designed a 1:1200 Walrus observation sea plane with camouflage coloring and am thinking of doing some also-simple little Swordfish biplane torpedoplanes, which the Ark Royal doesn't have. Also, I'll provide 7 extra twin 4" gun turrets, in case, someone wants to replace the funny-looking ones in the Airfix kit.

By the way, I've mentioned how an old Renwal 12-model 1:1200 set of 1950s era U.S. Navy ships went for $483 on eBay recently. Well, some of the old 1:1200 Eagle(wall) plastic model kits were selling for $33 for destroyers and the carrier Victorious went for $65!

In the accompanying photo ... which had to be reduced ... you can see the Airfix models on the right and the building hulls of the 5 classes of mine on the left: Cossack, Piorun, Dorsetshire, Rodney, and KGV. The battleships are about 7 inches(17.5 cms) long and the destroyers a little over 3.5 inches (9 cms) long. The cruisers and destroyers I'm printing out at 400 pixels to the inch, and I have gone into the drawings pixel by pixel to correct distortions and inconsistencies. They should be able to be enlarged to 1:700, for example, easily. I re-testbuilt Norfolk's hull at 1:600 and test-built the destroyers at slightly under 1:300 scale.

(On mostly unpainted PoW, when it sailed forth from Scapa Flow on that May 1941 day, the only verticals with gray lighter than the horizontals were the sides of the quadruple turrets.)

I had hoped Dorsetshire's Mountbatten Pink and the destroyer numerals would show up better in the photo, but .... The Airfix Tribals seem to have very high freeboards, and the lower stern suggests room for a full-hull shafts and rudder.

As usual, assembling the hulls were an ordeal, and at this scale, the slightest mistake is glaring. I was literally sweating over KGV's ... and I don't have to tell you what one drop of sweat would have done to hours of work. Somehow, they all come together ... with the requisite sheer on the sides of the bow. These are NOT the far easier (albeit far less accurate) Micro Models. It takes a really good eye in very good light to build these and there is no tolerance for imperfect scissoring and folds' groovemaking. Happily my close vision is abnormally good for my age.

I'm hoping that, of necessity, plastic model ship builders and naval game players will try my set too and become interested in the potential of ("pre-painted") cardstock paper models. Paper is greener.

I'll post more photos as the ships progress. They are keening to get the Bismarck, already.

[ju52man]

Nice work, and thanks for the news! Do you plan on making the Bismarck and Prinz eugen, too?

[LouCoatney]

Thanks for the compliment, Ju52man. :-)

No plans to do Bismarck or Prinz Eugen. They're adequately done in plastic at the popular scales - 1:1200, 700&720, 570&600, 350, ad infinitum - and those undercurving sterns and other features would mean too much time expended, while other ships needing models were passed over. And for paper display models ... detail ... you can't beat Wilhelmshaven, etc.

By the way, Matchbox had a very nice 1:700 model of the Kelly which could be built in the leader, 4"AA gun or 10 torpedo tubes configurations as well. It's fairly expensive on eBay. Revell has that adequate 1:720 model of the Tribal class destroyer in the box with its Ark Royal ... which often sells for only $10 on eBay ... and I know quite a few folks who have lots of extra 720 Ark Royals, as a result. :-)

I am, however, developing American, Japanese, Italian, and French card model sets. I think it was Don Boose who noted that my models have about the same level of detail as the wartime 1:1200 and 1:500 recognition models.

Easter WEEK vacation is upcoming here in Norway, and I'll be getting up photos of my 1200 models as they progress.

***

Corrected sentence from the first post: Also, I'll provide 7 extra twin 4" gun turrets, in case, someone wants to replace the funny-looking ones in the HOOD kit.

[ju52man]

Will these ever be available? I have a Bismarck and Prinz Eugen in paper-about this same scale-and would be able to use them for wargaming, etc.

[LouCoatney]

Indeed they shall be, Ju52man, and you can watch for their availability details on my webpage at My new 3-D 1:1200 card models of ships, complementing the Airfix Sink the Bismarck set.

Thanks for the question.

And where are your 1/1200 paper Bismarck and Eugen from? ??

[ju52man]

Hi,
They are not scaled yet, but are around there(I think) They are of my own design.

[LouCoatney]

Neat! Good luck with them!

[LouCoatney]

Despite Easter WEEK, a national holiday here in Norway having me way up in my wife's hometown mountain village - I married Heidi of the storybook, it seems - I've been building my Bismarck battles ships.

In the new photos are my JKN ORP Piorun, Tribal Cossack - destroyers - heavy cruiser Dorsetshire, battleship Rodney, battleship King George V, and in the back an Airfix Hood particularly well done by an unknown Briton. (I got it cheap on eBay to give to our 3 yr old Rohan, but the model was obviously lovingly built, so he can wait until he's old enough to appreciate/protect it.) Unfortunately, the camera focussed on the ships toward the back, so you still can't read Cossack's G03 and Piorun's G65 pennant numbers on their hullsides. I'll see if I can improve my camera skills.

I've got a sample twin 6" secondary gun turret on Rodney and sample twin 4" secondary gun turret on Dorsetshire, whose Mountbatten Pink seems a little clearer. On the other hand, apparently because of my kitchen lighting, the horizontal gray on the battleships and cruisers looks no darker than the vertical gray.

At this scale, KGV's twin 5.25" secondary gun turrets will necessarily be simplified, but overall proportional.

Contrary to the parallax effects of the higher angle photo, Rodney's stack is vertical, while Dorsetshire's and Piorun's are properly raked/angled back.

The tall mainmast abaft her stack is an indispensible part of Rodney's silhouette, and that will be in the next photos.

I haven't decided on the guns' plastic rod diameters, but I'll specify what those are, when I have at least the main battery guns in the next photos.

Since only one side of the sheets will be colored, the railings won't be able to be just folded up, like in my uncolored/unpainted plans, and gluing them back to their decks' edges is exacting and time-consuming. Trying to complete 5 different ships/classes simultaneously also prolongs completion.

Intriguingly, the Tribals are faster to assemble than the JKN: their deckhouses are more concentrated.

And on one of the ships I was going to photo/show the printing and my signature and date on its bottom but forgot to do so.

As of today - May is the 70th anniversary - Airfix still hasn't released its Sink the Bismarck set, so I don't feel any pressure for unwise haste in building.

Others could build these far better than I can.

[LouCoatney]

For the guns, it looks like:

1/1200-1250: 5" guns, 0.015" plastic rod; 5.25"-6" guns, .020" rod; 8-11" guns, .025" rod; 14" guns and larger .030” rod

The latest release date I've heard for the Airfix set is tomorrow. We'll see.

[ju52man]

Sorry for not sending you the models yet. Recenty, my computer crashed, so I have had to get it up again(I still have the files) and meking changes to the models.