Clearwater Models: TIRPITZ (Heller)

Thursday 26 March 2020

TIRPITZ (Heller)

This is the extremely tiny 1:2000 scale tiny model of the nazi scum battle cruiser/ battleship TIRPITZ which was meant to compete with the growing French navy. This is another in my series of fun and fast build COVID-19 models. I received it as a gift and the lockdown was a great opportunity to get it off the shelf, painted, rigged, and out of here. It was basically a two day build just for fun. The kit (Heller #052) has 46 parts. The model is a mere 12 cm in length. The real ship was 241.6 m. For scale the photos show either my fingers or a one Euro coin. The base is balsa wood and the water/waves are gesso painted with blue and white.

The actual ship was launched by Germany in 1939 and commissioned into the navy in 1941. The only real task for the ship was as a raider against convoys moving towards Murmansk and Arkangelsk in the USSR, but even then it only managed two missions. It spent most of its operational life essentially in hiding -- blanketed in artificial fog, or covered by a forest of trees to evade British heavy bombers! Tirpitz was eventually sunk by RAF Lancaster bombers on 12 November 1944. More than a thousand crewmen died in the explosions and capsizing.

Tirpitz, in 1:2000 scale by Heller