I always thought that the battleship tirpitz was the largest battleship during wwII until i read about japans ship called yamato which weighed 68,500 mt and 72,000 full load and tirpitz weight was somethink like 48,000 but had more crew,am new to this forum as i do armor but i fancy a change and iv always wanted to do a model of the bismarck.how hard is it to change from AFV's to ships any tips thanks karl

I built a model of the Yamato back in the early 1970's. It is a great kit with a lot of details. If my memory serves me right I think it was a Tamiya kit. I was stationed in Okinawa back then and bought it in a local hobby store in Koza City(Kadena).

Hello Karl,
I'm building the Yamato right now, well it is one of the ships I have going. It is about 80 % finished. It is the Tamiya 1/350 kit, and like Animal said, it is a great kit!
Highely detailed and has good fit. If you click on my selected link below it will take you to the Model Fleet. We have a Yamato group build going on there and there are alot of good pointers there to building the kit.
Also if you go to my photo's below, I have pic's of my 1/350 Tirpitz that I just completed awhile back. If you need to ask questions or need tips feel free to ask me or any other of the ship modelers on this site.
We are more then glad to help!

Cheers,

Garry

Cheers for your post lads,i was wondering how long is a 1:350 scale model bismarck is?just that i have a new display cabinet and it would look great sitting on display .thanks again

Ola Tigre,

I started building warships first then i went to armor. I don't think it'll be that hard to make the change. I'm actually more into figure modelling nowadays. The only thing that i can't seem to get interested in is aircrafts.

I miss building ships, but they take too much space.

Happy Sailing :-)

Got a funny story about the Yamato for yous guys...i am stationed at a joint command and my supervisor is a navy chief and this is his story. While in japan, his commander happened to ask about the yamato anchor (not the big anchor, but one of the smaller ones) which was displayed in front of a bldg on base. Long story short, he offered to buy it, the dudes who worked at the building jokingly sold it to him for 1 dollar, and when he left the base he had the packers go get it, and sure enough it sits in his front yard in wisconsin to this day.

Where does the Bismarck place in terms of size? (when comparing with the Yamato and Tirpitz)

Bismarck and Tirpitz are sister ships almost identical. To Tiger...most of the Tamiya 350 scale BB's run close to 3 feet 30 or so inches long and about 7 0r 8 inches high. any of the kits are highly recommended they are straight forward builds and look great. If you want to test yourself a bit pick up oe the the Photoetched sets to build with it. Those railings add tons to the beauty of the kit