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Academy 1/350 Graf Spee

By Tracy White

Overview

Graf Spee was the last and most famous of the German Deutschland-class cruisers. Although she featured many new features, her design was ultimately limited by the Treaty of Versailles, leaving her somewhat in between a battleship and a cruiser in abilities. Sent out as a commerce raider at the start of the war, she was caught by a group of faster Royal Navy cruisers and damaged enough that she had to put into port Montevideo, Uruguay to escape capture or sinking. Forced out by treaties within 72 hours, her captain elected to destroy her rather than face another battle with a crippled ship. On the evening of December 17, 1939, Graf Spee was scuttled in an estuary of the river and sank into the mud, where a large portion of her remains today.

The Kit

Academy's 1/350th Graf Spee is their second ship release in this scale and a welcome one for many fans of the WWII Kriegsmarine. The kit comprises close to 360 parts and will reward the modeler with a representation of the ship that is roughly 52.6mm (20 & 3/4 Inches) long and 61mm (2 & 3/8th Inches) wide (measured from the main deck level. The kit is engineered to be built either full hull or waterline with some modification.

The main deck is two separate pieces that must be joined together and sanded smooth. Unlike other ships there is no easy place to break the two piece and hide the line, but they did choose to put it near one of the 150mm gun mounts, so that the majority of it is hidden behind the turret. One potential problem is averted due to the use of engraved lines for the planking; they can simply be rescribed as opposed to sanded into oblivion. The fit between the two was not the best on my copy due to slightly less than perfect edges. Sanding the two joining edges perpendicular and then using the tip of a knife to slightly bore out the alignment holes made for a very good fit. There was a slight rounding of the top edges of the decks, leading to a depression that must be filled and the deck planks re-cut, but thankfully the planking matches up perfectly and there won't be cases of half-planks to nowhere.

The railings are a nice touch for those that do not wish to mess around with photo-etch, but for those desiring accuracy and fineness of detail they leave a lot to be desired. They are all straight two-bar railings, when those on the main and aft deck were chain and should have some droop to them as well as having three instead of two chains. Shots of the superstructure show straight bar railings as they weren't removed for the most part for turret movement, but once again they are three bar and not two.

One caveat for the modeler that chooses not to use the kit-supplied railings is that it leaves shallow alignment holes that will need to be filled (roughly 130 of them); plastic rod of various diameters can be glued in place and either cut or sanded flush fairly easily and quickly with the exception of part B22, which has a raised boilerplate pattern that will have to be eliminated or worked around. I found that the holes were consistant on each tree, but not in the kit; Tree D seemed to accept .025" rod the best, whereas the others would go for .030" or .035".

In addition to the railings, the modeler may wish to fill in the recessed "boiler plate" texture on the fore-peak of the main deck and lower forward area of the superstructure as it is over-done and on the super structure at least is a detail that did not exist on the actual ship.

Test fitting and light construction have shown good fit. The only place that has needed filler between the two hull halves and four pieces that comprise the main deck, break, and after deck has been the joint between the main deck and the vertical bulkhead that makes the break. This piece is also a little soft on detail, showing only mild depressions where the windows in this section were. There has been no warping in either of the hull or deck parts.

Instructions

The instructions are well printed, clear, and concise, but do not follow an optimal or useful order. They would have the builder install the railings ahead of the superstructure, for example, where it is much safer to work from the inside out, attaching small, delicate details last so they are less likely to be broken. The Academy assembly order is primarily designed for them to make a smaller booklet by covering each area as few times as possible and not for the new modeler to learn from. The painting guide is for the pre-war scheme and does not provide any guide for how she appeared during her final action.

Decals

Markings are provided for the ship and aircraft. There is the normal Swastica obfuscation to skirt laws in various countries, but the method of breaking them down will make for a lot of work lining the various pieces up true. A third-party decal or masking off to paint would probably be a better option. for the ship deck markings. The decal representation of the stern eagle is a pale substitute for the actual intricately cast piece of bronze artwork.

Building Experience

For the most part the Graf Spee is a fun kit to work on; well engineered and with few problems. The forward-most part of the superstructure is one exception to this. D19, the forward-most piece, and the two side pieces, D25 and D26 have an extremely vague joint; the instructions would have you join the three and then add the decks above, but I found it easier to join the two side pieces to the deck above and the the forward piece.

No fit problems needing more than a cursory amount of filler exist on either of the hull or main deck pieces save a "round down" on one of the main deck pieces that required filling and re-scribing of the planking. With the lower levels of the superstructure done the only other filling has been for the alignment holes of the kit-supplied plastic railings and some minor filling done where the decks meet the superstructure.

There is one detail on the main deck that affects fit of the superstructure; two rectangles that look like they are supposed to be matts of some sort for doors on the superstructure; they are too far aft and lay partially under the superstructure so that it has a gap fore or aft unless they are shaved off.

Inaccuracies and Omissions

There are a few things that are not represented correctly, and while they don't detract from the appearance of the model for most people, those suffering from Advanced Modelling Syndrome may wish to take notes.

One of the first things that stood out was a wide inverted "V" across the top of the turrets. I'm not sure what it is supposed to represent, howeverit is most likely based on a thin hand or foot rail visible in a picture of her earlier sister ship "Deutschland." Photos of Graf Spee at Monte Video show two vertical lines in between the guns instead of this chevron.

There are a couple of problems with the stack; the mast on top is very over-simplified and incorrect; it was a tripod structure instead of the single cross-shaped pole and yard arm they provide. The kit stack also is perpendicular to the deck where it joins where in actuality there was a steep angled piece that is just visible in a couple of photographs.

The Graf Spee had two prop-guards on the stern that are missing from the model; they were poles or booms that swung out from the side of the ship and should be easy to scratch build; pictures of her stern at Monte Video show them to good affect.

Conclusion

Academy's Graf Spee is a decent kit for a decent price. In comparison to the Trumpeter kit, it suffers a bit in detail crispness and some detail, but has a more accurate hull shape and some details correct that Trumpeter got wrong.