kriegsmarine ships?

Heller makes several DKM ships in 1/400 scale if you dont mind the slight difference. In addition to Bismark and Tirpitz, they have kitted Scharnhort, Gneisenau, Prinz Eugen, Graf Spee and others in that scale.

If you can wait a couple months, Revell will be releasing a very detailed 1/350 Bismarck.  Also, mpm has a little 1/144 Type XXIII sub that would go together with Revell's 1/144 Type XXI.

Not to be forgotten, Airfix has a 1/72 S-Boat (class 7) while Revell has a (actually two) S-100 in the same scale. 

whats the quality like on the Heller kits,  I found their Graf Spee with a detail set from roll models for about $30 for the model and $20 for the detail.

I have yet to build a Heller ship. On aircraft models I have been quite pleased, but in armor kits it has been either/or love em or hate em. But for product choices in 400th scale they are impressive in the European navies. And if $50 gets you photo etch and a large scale ship I'd say its worth a shot.

yeti0010 wrote:

whats the quality like on the Heller kits,  I found their Graf Spee with a detail set from roll models for about $30 for the model and $20 for the detail.

Unfortunately for your needs the best of the Heller 1/400 kits are of French ships not the German ones. The battleships Richelieu and Jean Bart along with Strasbourg and Dunkerque are really well detailed and well engineered kits for their time (these kits go back to the 1970s). The kits of the German navy are much less so. The ships are somewhat lacking in surface detail and the fit of the parts is not up to more recent standards at all. I would stick with the Tamiya Bismarck and Tirpitz with the extensive White Ensign Models detail sets or wait for the forthcoming Revell 1/350 Bismarck. The other problem with the Heller kits is availability. While some of them are still in the supply chain others are not and you are forced to go the rare kit route with dealers or on eBay. WS

It looks like I am going to be getting the 1/350 bismarck, Is the academy kit good quality I cant find any reviews and it is a bit cheeper then tamiya's.

There is a review of it on www.modelwarships.com.  It's OK, but the detail isn't as crisp as the Tamiya. If I was in the market for a 1/350 Bismarck kit, I would hold fire until I saw a review of the shortly to be issued Revell Germany version. If it is anything like their recent kits like the 1/72nd U Boat etc, it should be the best Bismarck kit to date. The Tamiya kit lacks detail on the superstructure decks.

David Harris wrote:

There is a review of it on www.modelwarships.com.  It's OK, but the detail isn't as crisp as the Tamiya. If I was in the market for a 1/350 Bismarck kit, I would hold fire until I saw a review of the shortly to be issued Revell Germany version. If it is anything like their recent kits like the 1/72nd U Boat etc, it should be the best Bismarck kit to date. The Tamiya kit lacks detail on the superstructure decks.

You can  have a look at the model at www.revell.de just click on "Gallery" and scroll or select the Bismarck, it looks great.

Example shot :

 

how hard would it be to scratch build a wooden deck  and what would I want to use to attempt the project

I seam to be finding refrences towrds an italeri 1/35 S-100 dose anyone know anything about this?

yeti0010 wrote:

how hard would it be to scratch build a wooden deck  and what would I want to use to attempt the project

Not sure how hard it is, but here's some pics. Looks like it's going to be a pain to do it, but the result is amazing. http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery/bb/dkm/bismarck-350-ek/ek-index.html

And about large scale ships, Revell 1/72 U-boots are quite nice kits. I'm currently working on Typ VII C Wolfpack with Eduard PE set and I must say it's good quality and fun to build. Bonus in that kit is that you can select from 6 different u-boot types that you can build straight out of the box.

I also have Tamiya's 1/350 Bismarck, excellent kit, lack of detail is a downside but WEM PE sets give it the detail it needs. WEM sets are damn expensive though, but everybody says they're worth every cent.