Yamato 3D

Hi Yann,

This is the result of around 4 weeks of work.

Best

Thomas

Hi Thomas,

Your work is wonderful! I wish I had the Bismarck and Yamato work when I built models of these two ships. I'm currently working on HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Hood and I loved your image of the two ships going into action against Bismarck. I looked at your web site to see if I could order a print of this picure, but I could not find how. Do you sell copies? If so, how can I order them?

Steve

Truly amazing work - a tribute to both modern technology and the skill of the artist.  Nowithstanding the incredible sophistication of the computer program, I'm sure it takes an enormous amount of training and practice to do such artwork.  It will be fascinating to watch how this sort of thing evolves during the next few years.

If I may be forgiven for wandering a little off track, the beautiful renderings of the Graf Spee reminded me of a question about her that's puzzled me for some time.  A few years ago I built a model of her (based on the excellent Italeri 1/720 kit), and did quite a bit of digging for photographs of her.  The best collection I found was in a paperback monograph by Siegfried Breyer.  

To my notion, one of the most distinctive features of German warships of that era (i.e., the period just before and after the Nazi Party came to power) was their heraldry.  The Graf Spee wore the coat of arms of the von Spee family on each side of her bow, the name "Coronel" (commemorating Adm. von Spee's WWI victory) on the front of her conning tower, and, after Hitler became Fuhrer, a huge gold eagle with a swastika in its claws on her stern.  I also thought I could make out, in several photographs in Mr. Breyer's book, what appeared to be a coat of arms on a plaque mounted on each side of each of the main battery turrets.  It looked as though each turret's coat of arms was different - and they certainly weren't of the same design as the ones on the bow.  I've never seen any references to those devices, and the photos weren't sufficient to establish what they looked like in any detail.  Does anybody out there happen to know what they were, or what they represented? 

In her pre-war configuration, with all that heraldry, the typical German two-tone grey color scheme, well-scrubbed wood decks, a black line running around the base of her superstructure, and the red and white "neutrality stripes" (for duty in the Mediterranean during the Spanish Civil War), she must have been an uncommonly handsome ship.  I've always found it ironic that two of the most viciously repressive regimes of the twentieth century, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, somehow managed to produce some of the century's best-looking warships.

Hi jtilley

Can you sent me an image of the part you mean? I am not shure what you mean with "appeared to be a coat of arms on a plaque mounted on each side of each of the main battery turrets". Don´t worry about the resolution it´s just to give me an idea what you are referencing. I have collected around 500 fotos of GS over the years.So  I am shure we can find a better view as in Breyers book.

Here is my email adress: tom@3dhistory.de

Best Thomas

Steve,

I am not shure what shot/image of  Hood/PoW you mean. Is it the front shot, were Hood is coming in front of the camera an PoW is to the left?

Drop me a line at: tom@3dhistory.de

Best

Thomas

Hi Tom,

That is the image I would like to get. I've sent you an e-mail with my return e-mail address. Please let me know. The image is marvelous and the emotions it raises with that shell splash behind Hood are the most moving I've had from any image of that battle.

Steve

Regarding the Graf Spee heraldry - I built that little model quite a few years ago, and haven't been able to lay hands on my copy of the Breyer book; it's undoubtedly around here somewhere, but I'm not sure where.

The devices in question were faintly visible in some overall shots of the ship (if one looked hard enough for them), and in a couple of on-board shots (usually with somebody standing in such a position that they were only partially visible).  They appeared to be mounted on the vertical side panels of each main turret, close to the front (i.e., the end where the gun barrels protruded).  They weren't very large - perhaps a foot or two tall.  It occurred to me that they might have been the heraldic arms of the gun manufacturer (the Krupp Werks, I imagine), but I thought I could detect that at least two of them differed from each other.

I haven't seen any reference to these coats of arms (or whatever they were) in any source.  I suspect they may have been removed when the ship's wartime camouflage scheme was applied in 1939. 

Tom,

You are far too modest about the quality of these images.  Anyone who has studied capital ships can clearly see that you have thousands of hours of research and planning in them as well as many hours at the keyboard to create the images in scale and realism.

I salute you for the new and exciting perspective this brings to the study and knowledge of these classic, historic warships.  Scale modeling is a science as much as a hobby and you not only bring it to a whole new medium, you provide a remarkable resource to the rest of us.

I respect and admire what you've done.  Keep up the very excellent work.

I remember many many many years ago,yes I am that old..:-) A discussion in a magazine where this topic of the shields came up.

    Somebody postulated that each turret was named for a district of Germany and carried the appropriate coat of arms for that district....Thus uniting Germans in mutual pride of their navy.