by Ralf Roggeveen
1/350 SMS Emden (Revell Germany)
Greatest commerce raider of the 20th Century, the immortal Emden; a vessel in which everything came together: design, Captain (Karl von Mueller), officers, ship's company and a lot of luck. Between August and November 1914 she sailed the Indian Ocean in a 30,000 mile voyage during which they sank or captured 23 merchant ships, disposed of a hopeless Russian cruiser and a brave French destroyer, bombarded Madras, inflicted £15m worth of damage on the Allies and tied down 78 enemy warships who were frantically trying to find her. The whole operation was carried out with perfect honour and careful avoidance of civilian casualties. Even after the Emden was herself destroyed by the Australian cruiser HMAS Sydney, the adventure was not over for her surviving landing-party who made another epic journey to return via the Red Sea, Arabia and Turkey back to Germany. Far better than any fiction!
The Revell kit with Gold Medal photoetch and a bit of scratchbuilding. The kit, though good, is not without its faults. Originally it was released as a choice between Emden or her sister-ship S.M.S. Dresden. Because the latter had a quadruple screw, this kit's hull comes in four pieces which require a lot of work. Not quite sure why two of the casements are sealed and gunless either, there should definitely be ten 10.5cm/4.1 inch guns. Upper yardarms on the mizzen mast had to be entirely scratchbuilt, as did the propellor-guards (although holes had been provided for them) In Stage 14 of the assembly instructions one of the cutters is accidentally labelled Part 74 when it is, in fact, Part 76. Tops of the funnels are a bit crude and would also have been better scratchbuilt. The flat anchors provided require proper reconstruction, as in many kits. Gold Medal's photoetch set is, as always, superb and worth every penny. My only minor criticisms there would be that they did not provide tillers for all of the ship's boats, nor any liferings (a few of which have been borrowed from a White Ensign set).
I've tried to depict Emden as she would have appeared at the very start of her epic voyage, wearing elegant pale grey warpaint, battleflag (by HP Models) aloft. You can, of course, also make this kit in her beautiful white and yellow 'Swan of the East' livery. For comparisons, in some of the pictures you can see Emden beside an 1/400 Imperial German Navy torpedoboat, and a same scale Russian light cruiser.
