¹⁄700

Searching For A Prince

The Search is on

On December 10, 1941, the two British battleships HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales were sunk by Japanese aircraft. Thus symbolically ended the rule of the battle ships at sea. In January 1942, the Kaibokan IJN Shimushu and the 5 minesweepers W-1, W-2, W-3, W-4 and W-5 sent out to find the wrecks of the Battleships. On 29th January the wreck of the HMS Repulse was discovered and with a buoy marked. Later on February 1st the wreck of the HMS Prinz of Wales found and marked.

Christian's story of the IJN Shimushu and the minesweeper W-1.

The model of the Shimushu is from Rainbow Models and a resin kit with an extensive photo etch provided. This kit has everything to build a ship of the Shimushu class in the 1941/42 configuration. A not so serious suggestion form a member at a Waterline Modelers meeting to build the mini model of the Shimushu aroused my spur. Since this is a small model, I was looking for a companion and I decided to add the minesweeper from Fivestar Model.

The minesweeper is also a resin kit with many photo etch parts. Unfortunately it is missing some important details. Depending on the construction state, the disguising cable was missing. More importantly the cutters and the paravane were missing as well. These were supplemented with cutters from Fivestar Model and paravanes from Rainbow Models. Other than the add-on parts, this was also a relaxed construction.

For the painting I used Tamiya's Sasebo Gray and Vallejo Colors for the details. The rigging was done with the Rig That Thing form Uschi van der Rosten.

The water surface is composed of several layers of Vallejo's Water Effects. For the waves I used cotton wool for the first time. This was first fixed with clear lacquer. For the final layer I used Noch's Clear Water.

Model Shipwrights would like to thank Christian Höltge for providing photos of his 1/ 700 scale diorama of the IJN Shimushu and the minesweeper W-1.