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Schwerer Kreuzer Prinz Eugen
Hipper Class Heavy Cruiser 1/200 Scale Chuanyu Models Currently under construction |
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| The Ship, (a brief history) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Named after Prince Eugene of Savoy, an 18th-century Austrian general, Prinz Eugen was the third of five ships of the Hipper Class.
The Ship was commissioned in August 1940 And saw it's first action during the Battle of the Denmark Straits during Operation Rheinübung. After the Engagement with the HMS Hood and Prince of Wales, Prinz Eugen was detached to raid Allied merchant shipping, but he was forced to return to port with engine troubles. Prinz Eugen put into the Port of Brest for repairs and after repeated attacks by the Royal Air Force, was forced to return to Germany in Early February 1942 along with the Battle Cruisers Gneisenau and Scharnhorst during Operation Cerberus, the infamous daylight dash through the English Channel. A week after his return from France, Prinz Eugen, along with the heavy cruiser Admiral Scheer and several Destroyer sailed to Norway. Two days after arriving In Trondheim Norway, Prinz Eugen was torpedoed by the British submarine Trident causing serious damage to the stern. In May, after emergency repairs which required the entire stern to be cut away and plated over and two jury-rigged rudders installed, Prinz Eugen returned to Kiel. After being out of service for repairs until late October the ship was then occupied with lengthy trials in the Baltic. In early January 1943, the Kriegsmarine ordered Prinz Eugen, along with Scharnhorst to return to Norway to reinforce the warships stationed there, but after being spotted British surveillance aircraft on two occasions the Ship was assigned to the training Squdron cruising the Baltic with Cadets
During the summer of 1944, Prinz Eugen along with Panzerschiffe Lützow operated in support of the German withdrawal from Finland . In October 1944, as Prinz Eugen was returning to Gotehafen he collided with the Light Cruiser Leipzig in heavy fog nearly slicing the ship in two. Prinz Eugen was taken to Gotenhafen where it spent the next month under repair. The ship was used to evacuate troops and for shore bombardment for the remainder of the war
In December 1945 Prinz Eugen was handed over to the Americans as a war prize. After extensive examination and testing, the ship was towed to the Pacific
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| The Kit: |
| The first thing you notice is the box it arrives in, A non-descript brown cardboard box that's surprisingly small considering it's a 200 scale ship. Iside the box are more cardboard boxes with the components and the two haves of the hull, well protected under layers of bubble wrap
This kit is entirely 3D printed in white plastic and comes with a large number of PE sheets, turned brass parts and wooden decks. There is also a radio control upgrade available which includes motors, brass props and prop shaft housings. My original intent with this kit was to set it up as a fully functional display model, with running lights, working props and rotating turrets, but that plan went out the window faster than your daughter's boyfriend. With a couple of exceptions the major sections of 3D printed material is devoid of details, most of which are found in the extensive turned brass fittings and the 15 well thought out sheets of photo etch The hull is split vertically at the midsection leaving a seam that needs to filled and requires a large amount of sanding. Since my only experience with 3D to this point have been small, fragile parts, I was surprised at how solid and heavy these items are. Being molded in white, the imperfection of the 3D printed are very difficult to see, and in some cases require an enourmous amount of sanding, something I discovered after I had completed the funnel subassembly. A nice grey primer will expose these issues for repair prior to addition of the numerous PE parts |
| Construction
As noted above, the hull is split vertically amidships and held together with four #8 bolts, I also epoxied the two halves before filling and sanding the seam. Since the intention is to light this ship up, I drilled out the portholes on the hull and put several coats flat black on the inner surface. After installing the Shaft struts and logs I installed all 400+ portholes along the side of the hull then took out the the spray booth. After a coat of primer, then the exterior colors from bottom up, and mounted on my usual choice of Ipe.
Click to enlarge The idea of lighting up the ship went out the window very quickly. Inspite of 3 coats of black paint both inside and out, plus the top coats, the laser printed material still absorbed the light from the LED's and the thing glowed like it was radioactive. |