Italeri 1/720 Lutzow

QUOTE: Originally posted by Min Soo I recently picked up the Italeri 1/72 Lutzow at my local hobby shop. I am also impressed by the quality of the mouldings and is looking foward to building this. But before I build this, can anyone provide me with info regarding the color scheme of the Lutzow during her career? I've surfed the web and came up with lots of unhelpful info. Thanks in advance.

It depends on what time of her career you want to build her. In her "standard" colors, she'd probably have Hellgrau 50 upper works and a Dunkelgrau 51 hull.

She not only work a disruptive scheme like the one shown above, but she wore the famous Baltic Stripes at one time as well.

Robert Stern's Kriegsmarine book (published by Squadron - not sure if it's still in print) would be a good reference. There is also a very good German Navy forum at: http://www.bismarck-class.dk/index.html. Ask your question in either the Deutschland Forum or in the Ship Modeling forum. I'm sure someone there would be able to help you - but again, you'll probably be asked what time frame you intend to represent.

Here's a couple profiles I found on the net. Note too that she was commissioned as the Deutschland but in February 1940 was renamed the Lutzow. It was renamed because Adolf Hitler feared that if it were to be sunk during the upcoming invasion of Norway, it would cause a significant psychological defeat as the ship was carrying the name of their country.

This is from a Russian site and all I could understand is 1942, similar to how it is depicted on the Italeri boxtop art. From the book Jane's Battleships of the 20th Century a colour plate is almost the same, but the pattern has all straight edges and no "squigglies". It's caption states this is how she appeared in the Baltic during the summer of '42.


from KBismarck.com
It won't allow to post the pics, but at this site on the left column find Additional Information and click WWII German Warships - scroll down and you'll see 3 colour plates for the Deutschland



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Jack