1:700 Heisternest Germany 1939

A vessel with three flags and three names

The history of the real ship begins in 1916 at a Finnish yard, where she was built for the Imperial Russian Navy. After the upheaval and the wars in eastern Europe the vessel came to Poland, which listed her among its gunboats and named her after the marshal of the day. Before the outbreak of the Second World War she went through several changes of armament and was one of the few larger units the Polish fleet had at its disposal.

September 1939 found the ship in a harbor near Gdynia, where a morning air raid lightly damaged her steering gear. She therefore moved to the Hel peninsula, and there, at the beginning of October, the German side captured her. After repairs and rearming she went on serving under a new German name; in 1943 she was given only a number instead of a name, and that same year a raid on a French port sank her together with the floating dock she was standing in. She was not raised until a year later and ended up scrapped.

A small model with a big story

The size of the real ship makes this build a rewarding project for one or two evenings, with no worry about extensive superstructures. All the more, then, does a careful finish with clean edges stand out. Small vessels work splendidly in a harbor scene beside a quay, a crane or indeed the floating dock that played the main part in the fate of the real ship. Anyone taking up 1:700 for the first time will find a sensible start here, without dozens of tiny parts. When painting, it helps to divide up the areas: the deck a shade warmer than the sides, the armament somewhat darker. Small ships can also take noticeably stronger weathering than large units, because in ordinary service rust and wear showed on them more quickly.