1/350 Kriegsmarine Blücher (Trumpeter)

For Norwegians, April 9th 1940 is a date of great significance. On this day, Norway was invaded by Germany.
The attack on Oslo was undertaken by Attack Group 5 lead by the brand new and untested heavy cruiser Blücher along with Lützow (Panzerschiff), Emden (light cruiser) and several smaller vessels. Upon entering the Oslo Fjord, the Norwegian Coastal Artillery was alarmed, but all attempts to stop the attack group was unsuccessful until it tried to pass the final barrier in the narrow fjord: Oscarsborg. The brave Colonel Eriksen opened up with 280, 150 and 57 mm artillery and shot the lead ship, Blücher ablaze. The other ships in the flotilla managed to halt, but it was too late for Blücher: As the ship passed Oscarsborg, its fate was sealed by two torpedoes, whereupon the cruiser sank it the cold water taking much of its crew and Wehrmacht personnel with it. This allowed the Norwegian King, the Prime Minister and the Government to flee and eventually evacuate to England to continue the fight.

So much for the history: To me, perhaps the saddest thing is the fact that there hardly exists an accurate model of Blücher. Revell offers one in 1:720, but this is far from accurate. A few models have been built in Norway and abroad, but as Blücher is far less interesting to the rest of the world than Hipper and Prinz Eugen, there are in fact few if any complete and/or accurate models around. So I sat out to build no less than a Blücher more accurate than what has been seen before. Hmm.. - not a smal undertaking....

I used the Trumpeter kit Admiral Hipper as a starting point. Hipper is the name ship of its class, and was laid down before Blücher. The only two ships in the class are these two, but it could also be claimed that the Prinz Eugen, Lützow (sold to Russia 50% finished, never completed) and Seydlitz (Planned to be completed as a Carrier, but never finished) belongs to the same class even though those three ships should be regarded as modified Hipper class.

Lots of modification had to be undertaken to modify the Hipper as there are plenty smaller and minor differences between the two ships. For those who have a special interest.

Materials: Trumpeter Admiral Hipper, WEM PE-frets for Admiral Hipper + PE-frets for AA, plastic sheets. Parts from parts bin (PE/plastic), searchlights Revell, Arado Dragon. Self made parts.

Paint: Mainly WEM and some Revell (Steel deck, boot topping and hull below water line). Yellow turret tops: Valejo 70856 Ochre Brown. “Teak” deck (tinted to better color): ArtWoxModel (Really a good and inexpensive deck with accurate size of planks! Perhaps only beaten by Pontos Models decks which also features framing of deck installations and barbettes – however not available for Hipper/Blücher).

All rigging: Stretched sprue, selfmade. Fastened by superglue.
 

Gallery updated 2012

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