1:2000 Battleship HMS Prince of Wales

Flyhawk 1:2000 battleship HMS Prince of Wales

A model of the British battleship HMS Prince of Wales in 1:2000 scale from the Flyhawk brand. This scale is a marginal one in ship modeling and means a genuinely small object: a ship over two hundred meters long fits into roughly ten centimeters. That is precisely why it is a piece for a display case or a desk rather than a kit for long evenings. It is all the more interesting as a comparison: beside a model of the same ship in an ordinary scale, the difference in size is immediately apparent.

The real subject

HMS Prince of Wales was a battleship of the King George V class, completed in haste in 1941. With workmen still aboard she took part in the duel with Bismarck in the Denmark Strait, where she took hits but also struck her opponent. Churchill and Roosevelt then met on her deck for the talks on the Atlantic Charter. In December 1941 she was sunk by Japanese aircraft off the Malay Peninsula.

What to be ready for

• in 1:2000 scale all the parts are very small; expect to work with tweezers
• you can manage the painting with a brush, but choose lighter shades, as a small object looks darker
• do not overdo the detail; at this scale a clean shape is more convincing
• the model suits a display case with other ships, where the ratio of sizes stands out

The model is not a toy. Keep the small parts out of the reach of the youngest children. Glue, paints and accessories are not included in the package, unless stated otherwise.