The Ship Model Forum

If you would prefer to stay with the 1/700, it is highly probable that both Trumpy and Dragon will eventually release their respective German DD's in that scale. How long you would need to wait, however, I have no idea.

I picked up the Trumpeter DD, and overall, I think it looks pretty good in the box.

You can find two build up on the gallery, here and here.

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Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

Ship Model Gallery

Same here, my Trumpeter Z25 arrived last week and it looks good enough for me. Real value for the money too - apart from the omission of a set of PE railings.
Mind you, Phil said he had enough PE railings left over from his Graf Spee & Admiral Hipper builds to fit out his Zerstorer.

Having seen Phil's build-up, I am looking forward to starting mine now that the fine weather is here and spraying outside can begin.

From a scale distance away, if it looks like a Zerstorer, then it is a zerstorer - bells & whistles or no bells & whistles.

At a distance an old Revell FLETCHER would look like an early war Zerstorer so why buy a Trumpeter kit then? Saying a kit looks "OK" and resembles the subject at a distance is kind of like saying a woman looks pretty hot in a dark bar at the other end of the room ... after you had a couple of drinks.

I looked at a Trumpeter Z-25 in the box and they did better than their poor FLETCHER class destroyer kit, but the darn thing is only full hull and I like waterline and I don't like to cut hulls in two. It all depends on what you are willing to live with.

Anyone hear of any rumors regarding plans for a dedicated photoetch set for the Trumpy kit? I have been looking but all I can find are brass barrels.

Has anyone compared a Dragon Z-39 and a Trumpeter Z-43 hull?

I am generally building full-hull and was very surprised seeing the totally different underwater shape of both ships which should be basically very similar (type 1936 mob A and B).
The Dragon version is aft notably sharp cut off in the area of the propeller shafts while the Trumpeter is more conventionally rounded.
I have never seen a photo in drydock or a design drawing showing this area clearly.

Was there really such a different shape of the underwater hull or is one of the models a little "genereric" ?

I believe White Ensign Models is working on a set. Check their website for pre-order.

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Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

Ship Model Gallery

may be this plan of z36a can help
ciao peppe

Hi Peppe

Thanks for your reply. I already thought everybody is doing waterline models now and nobody interested in the rest of the ships any more
I have seen before the cross-sections you so friendly attached. I just think that the hull-form is not clearly defined by the these cross-sections alone and I never saw a complete set of lines of these destroyer.
To make it more clear I attach a photo. The red hull (the dragon) has very sharp "knuckle" where the bottom and sides transit into the rudder and propeller area (you can see the sanding lines). Compare this with the round shapes of the grey trumpeter hull. The dragon hull look more like riverboat, not like very fast and sophisticated destroyer..
I tend to think of a misinterpretation of the line drawings (maybe they had only the cross-sections!), something like what happened to Hasegawas "Nagato" a few years ago.
But before I start to reshape the hull I wanted to be sure and asked for further info or photos

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"The war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage"

Emperor Hirohito in his capitulation speech 1945

Thanks Martin,

I will be sure to look for it.

Sorry, the previous post was mine and I thought I had logged in, but apparently didn't. Thanks again, Martin.

How did the Kriegsmarine paint the overheads on exterior surfaces? Would they be a separate color from the vertical surfaces or the same?

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Tracy White -Researcher@Large

"Let the evidence guide the research. Do not have a preconceived agenda which will only distort the result."
-Barbara Tuchman

Do you mean the undersides of decks or the tops of vent heads etc?

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"The war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage"

Emperor Hirohito in his capitulation speech 1945

Undersides of platforms such as the bridge wings

_________________
Tracy White -Researcher@Large

"Let the evidence guide the research. Do not have a preconceived agenda which will only distort the result."
-Barbara Tuchman

"Anstriche und Tarnanstriche der deutschen Kriegsmarine" says nothing directly about the undersides of platforms or deck but states:
Outsides of upper deck and superstructures, outsides and insides of masts, bulwarks, hammock-boxes, non galvanized shelves and airvents, unless they are made of aluminum : 2x50
50 is Top coat, light grey , roughly RAL 7001
When you look here: http://www.bismarck-class.dk/bismarck/gallery/themes/gallbismstarboardmidshipsection.html the underside of the platforms look dark due to the shadow, but the few sunny parts look the same color as the outside. that is definitely valid for destroyers, too.
Both let me think that the undersides of platforms were standard color 50 , unless maybe the area is camouflaged, but anyway follows the outside color of the superstructure in this area.
Quite sure it is not the normal dark grey deck paint 59 (Ral 7016). In german it is called "Trittfeste Aussendeckfarbe" meaning "step resistant outside deckpaint". Would not make sense there.

Hope that helps you.

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"The war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage"

Emperor Hirohito in his capitulation speech 1945

Does anyone know of a good book or website for color scemes and fitting variations on these vessels? Thus far, I've been gathering that the three 1:350 kits released are pretty particular to their specific subjects, at their specific time periods. And on top of that, they're all in the same bland paint scheme (until Dragon's next one comes out). I have seen (and have purchased several) good reference books on Kriegsmarine light cruisers on up, and on the U-Boats and S-Boats, but nothing on Zerstorers (or the Schleswig-Holstein and Schliessen, but that's a different "Holy Grail Quest"). In the short term, I have a hankering to tear into this Trumpeter Z-43 and am wondering if it can be built out-of-the-box and painted up in some kind of disruptive pattern and be historically accurate for any of the 1936B ships. In the broader sense, I'd just like to get a good reference on this subject for my model projects and personal library.

- Sean F.

The a.m mentioned "Anstiche und Tarnanstriche der deutschen Kriegsmarine" (Color and Camouflage of the German Navy) is probably the best general info about the colors.The german version has english captions.
There is not that much pics about german destroyer, a lot probably lost at war's end. As far as I know Z-43 has never been camouflaged as the Kriegsmarine was 1944/45 convinced that camouflage of ships is useless in the age of RADAR.
For info about the ships you can look here: http://www.bismarck-class.dk/german_destroyers/z39.html
or when you can read german: http://www.lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de/Waffen/Z43.htm
There are design drawings and books in german about all the destroyers. When interested i can find out the titles (don't have them myself)
A very colorful one is Z37 which can be comparably easily done from Z-39 by taking off the additional AA, however you miss 1x15 cm single (C-mount was replaced by AA). BTW the Z-39 hull has a serious problem. The Tamiya 1:700 has a correct camouflage scheme on the box. Several of the Narvik destroyers had something similar, but not identical.
The Z-43 could be made into a Z-20 to Z-23 with some references. Z-20 survived the war, so drawings and photos are available and it was camouflaged 1942.

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"The war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage"

Emperor Hirohito in his capitulation speech 1945

What is the serious hull problem you refer to?

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Tracy White -Researcher@Large

"Let the evidence guide the research. Do not have a preconceived agenda which will only distort the result."
-Barbara Tuchman

Tracy, I think he means this post (there's a pic attached in the original - just a few posts above on this page):

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De quoi s'agit-il?

1/350 Z-39 build up by Mark Staszewski posted to the gallery.

_________________
Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

Ship Model Gallery