Description
Gneisenau was a German ship described both as a battleship and a battle cruiser. She was the second vessel of her class. Her sister ship was the Scharnhorst. She was built in Kiel, laid down on 6 May 1935 and launched on 8 December 1936. The ship was armed with a main battery of nine 28cm C/34 guns in three triple turrets. Plans were approved, once construction had started, to replace her guns with six 38cm SK C/34 guns in twin turrets, but as involved a lot of redesign, construction continued with the lower caliber guns. The intent was to make the upgrade in the winter of 1940–41, but the outbreak of World War II stopped this.
Gneisenau and Scharnhorst operated together for much of the early part of World War II, including sorties into the Atlantic to raid British merchant shipping. During their first operation, the two ships sank the British auxiliary cruiser HMS Rawalpindi. Gneisenau and Scharnhorst participated in Operation Weserubung, the German invasion of Norway. During operations off Norway, the two ships engaged the battlecruiser HMS Renown and sank the aircraft carrier HMS Glorious. Gneisenau was damaged in the action with Renown and later torpedoed by a British submarine, off Norway. In 1941, Gneisenau and her sister put in at Brest, France. The two battleships were repeatedly bombed by the RAF. Gneisenau was hit several times during the raids, though she was ultimately repaired.
In early 1942, the two ships went up the English Channel from occupied France to Germany. After reaching Kiel in early February, the ship went into drydock. On the night of 26 February, the British launched an air attack on the ship; one bomb penetrated her armored deck and exploded in the forward ammunition magazine. The repairs were so time-consuming that it was determined to rebuild the ship to replace the nine 28 cm guns with six 38 cm guns in double turrets. The 28 cm guns were removed and used as shore batteries. In 1943, Hitler ordered the cessation of conversion work, and on 27 March 1945, she was sunk as a block ship in Gotenhafen (Gdynia) in German-occupied Poland. She was eventually broken up for scrap in 1951.
Kit Features:
- Scale : 1:200
- Item Type : Plastic Model Warship Kit
- Model Brief : Length: 1175mm Beam: 150mm
- Total Parts : 1420+
- Metal Parts : Anchor chain , shaft
- Photo Etched Parts : 8 pcs
- Total Sprues : 24 sprues , hull , superstructure and decks
- More Features : - One-piece hull made from two-directional slide molds
- Deck pattern finely rendered.
- Accurately detailed gun
- 6 pieces of photo etched frets for handrais，ladders , radar parts etc.
- Includes 2 Ar196 waterplane