1/700 SMS Hagen (Oceanmoon)

The SMS Hagen was the sixth and last ship of the Siegfried class. Originally, it was declared as Panzerschiff IV. Class but in 1899 designated as coastal defense ship. She was laid down in 1891 in the imperial shipyard in Kiel. The commissioning took place on October 2, 1894. The original length was 79 m and the armament was initially three 24 cm L / 35 guns in three single gun turrets In addition, there were eight 8.8 cm cannons in single gun carriage and four torpedo tubes.
After an incident in Morocco in July 1895, the Hagen was sent together with the cruiser Empress Augusta and the Corvettes Marie and Stosch to show the German flag. The sending of the Hagen, which was not built for such a trip, shows that the Imperial Navy was still at its beginnings. After returning to Germany the Hagen was integrated into the IV Division together with the two sister ships, Heimdall and Frithjof. In 1898 the Hagen, together with the sister ships, undertook a major reconstruction. The ships were extended to make room for larger boilers. The new length was now 86.13 m and the displacement increased from 3500 to 4247 t. A second funnel was installed and that is a good recognition point for the rebuild Siegfried class ships. The secondary battery was increased to 10 pieces of 8.8 cm cannons and the torpedo tubes replaced with larger ones, the front tube however was omitted. From 1903 it was used together with the Beowulf, Heimdall and Hildebrand in the II squadron. However, the Hagen was subsequently put out of service for the most part. With the outbreak of the First World War the Hagen was reactivated and together with its sister ships in the VI squadron was reponsible of the protection of the German bay. However, the Hagen was at this time more than obsolete and was finally put out of service on 1 September 1915. The only significant use was the Hagen in November 1914 where she was involved in saving the crew of the damaged cruiser York.

The kit comes from the Chinese small-series manufacturer Oceanmoon. This is mainly specialized in Chinese ships from the turn of the century, but also has one or the other unusual model in its program. This includes the Hagen in the state of construction after the conversion of 1900. In addition to the resin hull and smaller resin parts, the kit receives an almost complete etching plate, turned 8.8 and 24 cm barrels and masts. To this is added a plastic sprue, with many small parts such as fan-inlets, launches etc. are included. The quality of the parts is excellent and very mention worthy there is a multi-page colored instruction. However, there are two negative points to mention. On one hand, unfortunately, the bow and aft emblem is not included. However, this is clearly visible in paintings and paintings. And fan-inlets should also be used from the sprue, but there are too few on it. Three sets of sprues are required. Fortunately, I received replacement from the model marine community. The problem with the bow and aft emblem I surrounded, in which I built the Hagen after a photo of 1915. There it was no longer visible, and the Hagen itself was painted in a two-tone camouflage. The color is difficult to determine, but for me, a basic color in light gray with camouflage in black makes the most sense. These colors were already used. For scaling reasons, however, I took dark gray instead of black. Most of the railing I replaced by the ones of Lion Roar and Bigboyblue. Missing are the ones for the bow and aft area completely and they must be replaced in any case.
The model was lacquered with Vallejo 155 light gray and 168 black gray. The wooden deck was painted with 021 medium skin tone and received various dark brown washings.

The water was created as usual with the Water Effects of Vallejo. For the waves, I again put cotton wool into the water surface.

Gallery updated 9/28/2017

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