1/350 DKM Scharnhorst (Dragon)

As others who have built this splendid model have reported, Dragon has done a wonderful job of creating an accurate and detailed (maybe TOO detailed) kit of the German battlecruiser Scharnhorst as she appeared on her last voyage for the Battle of the North Cape on December 26, 1943.  Dragon may have over-engineered the kit in the sense that many small parts must be assembled from still smaller parts, and they are not always conveniently removed from the sprues.  Dragon does, however, provide numerous extra parts, especially guns, and provides plastic barrels that compare very favorably in size and shape with the brass ones I used (mostly) from Model Masters.  I did keep plastic barrels for the Bruno turret, one 6-in. twin turret and the four single 6-in. turrets, and these can elevate -- if the blast bags are used with shortened brass (or plastic) barrels, they cannot elevate.  Where the brass barrels are especially useful is for the single and twin 37 mm guns, whose plastic barrels are much too wide.  I kept the kit's quad 20 mm plastic AA guns only because they had flared muzzles, and I did not have suitable brass replacements.

I accessorized the Dragon kit with WEM's photoetch set (which provides the essential railings and extra radars for backdating the Scharnhorst, if desired; Dragon provides several photoetch frets with the kit) and with the Artwox wood deck, which fits very nicely in all locations.  The only problem I had with it is that, since it raises the height of the main deck by a little under a millimeter, the plastic deck hatches that protrude through cutout ports are somewhat undersized in terms of thickness and the little curved brass ventilators and pipes that attach to the first and third (Anton and Caesar) main gun turret barbettes hinder rotation of those turrets.  Dragon has designed this kit so that none of the guns can rotate once glued into place; some minor re-engineering is necessary to permit them to do so (I did this for all three main gun turrets and the four twin 6-in. gun mounts).  The Dragon kit does not include a floatplane; presumably, none would be useful during the Arctic winter with its 24 hours of darkness. Paints are WEM Colourcoats, and I chose to adhere to the more conservative camo scheme reported for the Scharnhorst rather than the alternate Norwegian one this ship may have had by the end of 1943.  Steve Wiper's Warship Pictorial 36, Kriegsmarine Scharnhorst, was a very helpful reference, and he points out that there is still uncertainty as to which colors this ship wore at the end of its career -- the available photos are all black-and-white and specific paint color documentation is lacking.

As I did with my model of Trumpeter's Prinz Eugen, for purposes of historical accuracy I chose to portray the Scharnhorst with the Nazi swastika decals on the forecastledeck and quaterdeck; it occurred to me that these would have made wonderful bullseyes for Allied bombers!  No offense is intended by their display.
 

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