Naval History Forums

Some of you are aware that I am doing a CAD model of the Scharnhorst. I have been getting a very good reaction to my questions here, so I thought I would post some renders here for some critiquing. Let me know what you guys think. And remember, I can't make it right if you don't say anything.

Looks very good my friend! How long did the superstructure shown take? And how long will it be before the entire ship is done? This is very interesting!

This assembly, by itself was probably 200 to 300 hours. The whole ship is at about 75% right now and has taken 7 or eight months, so going by those numbers it should be done in another three months. But I will say that every time I give someone an estimate, I usually shoot right through it. My original estimate was 3 to 4 months, so take it with a grain of salt.

good job guy.
i would like to see it with the timber in decks and an environment like rust in some parts.
Very well done
Congratulations i know how is difficult to do it.

Superp model!

I don't think it will ever be 100%, do you?

By the time you get it to a point... you really don't want to change it... even if you copy it somewhere else. Trust me... I know!

Yes, there will come a day that I will say "IT IS DONE." And there will be much rejoicing and celebrating throughout the land. And there will be sacrifices and burnt offerings, and multitudes will gather and ... oh never mind, but it will be done, and soon.

Next installment is of the completed weapons systems. The only one I don't have included in this set is the naval quad 2cm, because it is not done yet (or even started). The army quad 2cm flakvierling is done and included below. Starting from smallest to largest, is the single 2cm:




After that the army quad 2cm:




Then we have the twin 37mm:

Next is the 105mm's. There are two variants, with only very minor differences. The forward-most pair have a cylinder on top of the left gun cover, not sure what it is for.




The other five 105's do not have this cylinder.



After the 105's comes the single 150mm's.




And the twin 150's:




The forward 150's have a flakvierling mounted on top of them:

And last of all come the 280mm's. I haven't added a lot of fitting details around the bases yet, that will come later and be part of the hull subassembly.

Here we see Anton:



And Bruno:



And last of all Cesar, which looks about like Anton:


In case you haven't figured it out yet, this is for a late 1943 fit Scharnhorst. There will probably be an earlier fit later on.

Looking at this plan, I have noticed something that a normal plan wouldn't highlight. On the plan of the top of the funnel, there is a gun mount to the rear of the funnel screen which I take to be a flavkeiling four gun 20mm flak. I realise this might be a daft question, but wouldn't the wind have a tendency to blow the funnel outakes onto the crew of this weapon and the gun itself? - and interfere with the efficiency and combat effectiveness of this weapon?

After some thought the only answer I can give is "somewhat when it is at sea." In a situation where the only thing affecting the smoke is the breeze from front to back as the ship runs full speed straight into the wind, yes I think that would obscure their vision. But in a situation where there is a cross breeze, and the ship is making high speed turns to avoid bombs, artillery, and/or torpedos, it might have a tendancy to move the smoke around with sufficient force to make the gun more usable. Then again, most of the planes the gun faced were when Scharnhorst was in port and making little to no smoke at all. So I have a feeling that the smoke was a hinderance at times, but the gun was still justified in being there. Enough so that Gneisenau was later fitted with a small tower just behind and below this spot for another flakvierling.

I realized I haven't shown you guys a complete view of the ship yet, and for that I apologize, since you have been so supportive. Here is a render I did today.

It would be interesting to see a CAD design for Gneisenau, for comparison purposes to Scharnhorst.

Another thought that occurs to me is that the German light cruisers all (except for Emden) featured triple gun arrangements but in reverse arrangement to the twins. Had the the Germans constructed these light cruisers to the same silhouete and gun arrangement to the twins it would have caused the Allies major problems in ship identification, even more so than between the Hipper and Bismarck class, which worked for the Germans at the DS battle.

I presume from this CAD design as shown they could be scaled down to 5.9 inch gun calibre from 11 inch without major change to the appearance of the ship on the basis that the overall dimensions are equally proportionately scaled down. In other words this design could be used for a light cruiser class?

Thanks rtwpsom2 for these designs, they are far superior to the standardised mono designs you see in most books.

Another thought has occured to me - this three dimensional design would be most illustrative for detailing the hilfskreuzer - by showing these vessels in comparison between being fully disguised and cleared for action....