In extraordinary brief:

He was laid down at the Blohm and Voss Shipyard in Hamburg, Germany in July, 1936, launched in early 1939 and completed in August, 1940. Built under the terms of the Anglo- German Naval Agreement of 1935 to counter similar efforts by the French and Italians, Bismarck and sister Tirpitz were the largest battleships ever built by Germany, or any other European Navy. 

In May, 1941, Bismarck was tasked with raiding Allied shipping, accompanied by the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen. Over the course of three days in late May, Bismarck (with Prinz Eugen) encountered and sank England’s largest warship, the battle cruiser Hood, and badly damaged the accompanying battleship Prince of Wales. In turn, Bismarck absorbed battle damage that soon led to fatal consequences, with Bismarck eventually surrounded and succumbing to the weight of fire from a superior British battle group. Her mostly intact wreck was found by Dr. Robert Ballard in 1989.

A far more detailed, in-depth recounting of Bismarck’s background, design and service history can be found from a variety of sources. A multitude of linked articles at Wikipedia provides a reasonably good, concise narrative of all these points.

For those wishing to go more into depth, two other very notable websites dedicated to the ship and class are: kbismarck.com and bismarck-class.dk . Plus, there is our very own, highly informative, MW dedicated CASF thread.

For technical details, one other invaluable resource would be the Anatomy of the Ship books on Bismarck. There are two versions: the original by Jack Brower, published in 2014, and the revised edition from Stefan Draminski, released in 2018. Most opinions favor the 2018 book over its predecessor as being far more complete and expansive. Sadly, I have yet to pick up a copy.

I make no claim to any expertise on the ship or the Kriegsmarine; I am merely a longtime fanboy. I succumbed to his lure as a young boy after reading William Shirer’s “The Sinking of the Bismarck”. That reading prompted enumerable builds of the Aurora and Revell Bismarck (and Tirpitz) kits in my earlier years. While my modeling interests eventually turned to the Imperial Japanese Navy, I have never lost my fascination with this ship.

So, I do have some references on hand. Included are the Garzke and Dulin volume on Axis Battleships, the Classic Warship Pictorial on Bismarck (and Tirpitz), the Siegfried Breyer softcover on Tirpitz, the Gakken WWII series vol. 25 on the Kriegsmarine, and a smattering of related Breyer books.

I’ve also built the 2017 Meng 1/700 Bismarck snap-fit kit with, and for, my son within the last year. I found it more detailed than I would have expected, and it seems passably accurate, save for the smaller weapons and finer parts. There was still a lot of cutting and filing of small parts, though. Further, there’s a new tool (2005) Aoshima 1/700 kit in the stash. Both kits made for handy points of comparison with the new Flyhawk kit. 

These successes notwithstanding, Flyhawk apparently has been unable to resist the lure of having a DKM Bismarck in its line-up. Like many others, I wondered why it was necessary to produce yet another Bismarck kit. Yet, if one thinks about it, what better way to make cement a reputation in this field then to issue an accurate, detailed, state-of-the-art kit of one of the most well-known ships in history? Assuming one can pull that off, of course. Plus, a company needs sales to remain profitable, and ship name recognition still goes a long way in the world of scale modeling. Having a kit of Bismarck in one’s line-up is a time-honored practice at this point. 

As for the kit itself, everything is molded in a smooth, pleasant matte medium grey with no flash or obvious sinkholes. There are some subtle depressions, though. The kit can be displayed as a waterline or full hull model. The upper and lower hulls come wrapped in protective foam sheeting, with portions of the superstructure nestled within them. Including duplicate sprues, there are more than 600 pieces on 47 sprues, along with three hull and one main deck piece, waterline weight, and a decal sheet. Frankly, that is an awful lot of pieces for a 1/700 scale kit, though they all seem of uniformly high quality, fidelity, and proper scaling. An extensive selection of photoetch and brass barrels for this kit is also offered by Flyhawk, both separately, and in a special edition of this kit.

The upper hull runner insert is mounted high enough to allow the addition of the optional waterline plate. In the case of the full hull option, the bottom of the upper hull has a number of holes and slots (on the inside) meant to match up with locater tabs mounted on the lower hull to align properly. An impromptu test fit with the lower hull was satisfactory. There were some small seams and gaps showing at various intervals, but I think these will mostly disappear when glued. Use of some filler and a sanding stick is likely, at least on this particular sample.

The kit hull has the ship’s very characteristic amount of flair set high forward due to the Atlantic bow and it certainly looks proper to me. However, there are two qualifiers. One, the bow is so fine that there are subtle sink depressions to either side of the prow, probably due to uneven cooling once the plastic was pulled from the mold. It’s so slight that it’s possible that a couple of passes with a sanding stick might do the trick, without putty filler.

The other is that the waterline portion of the hull does not lie completely flat. There’s a slight upward curve over the forward third of the hull, more prominent on the port side. It may not be limited to just my sample; a review of online release photos shows some similar bowing in other kits. It won’t be an issue for those building a full hull version, but it may take a bit of work to flatten it out for the waterline builders. The waterline plate may aid in this – see my comments there.

Dimensionally, the FlyHawk hull is very much spot on. It was interesting to compare it dimension-wise with the other versions that I had on hand; the Aoshima version was relatively oversized, while the Meng kit was also very good:

Actual	1/700 (calculated)	Flyhawk	Meng	Aoshima 2005
LOA 251m (823 ft 6 in)	358.57mm	358.5mm	358mm	359.5mm
WL 241.6m (792 ft 8 in)	345.15mm	345.5mm	345mm	347.5mm
Beam 36m (118 ft 1 in)	51.43mm	51mm	51.5mm	52mm

It’s an extremely well detailed deck, with properly scaled planks which are very similar to what’s seen on the Kajika (Flyhawk’s sister division) Kongo class battlecruisers. They are approximately .01” wide (a scale 7”), set in a pattern of that repeats every fifth plank. I’ve no idea if that pattern is correct for the ship, but it certainly works here. Don’t let anyone tell you that accurate sized deck planking can’t be molded in 1/700. These will look great painted and with a wash. 

In order to protect the extreme ends from bending damage, the deck comes packaged in an ingenious card board sleeve that wraps around each of the ends while connected by a length of cardboard. Smart, simple and likely very effective against casual bending and damage.

As with the upper hull, the edge of the bow is extremely fine for this scale. On the whole, that’s a very good thing, but it does produce the same condition of some large sinkholes (actually, shallow depressions) to either side. The fineness also makes that portion of the bow vulnerable to some bending damage, as my kit experienced. These are easy fixes, but still need to be noted. 

The Arado verges on qualifying as a small model by itself.

And now, back to the lettered sprues……….

The turrets are the finest I’ve seen in this scale for this ship. Even the large rivets that are characteristic for the outside of the turret hull are minutely rendered, in scale, it seems. Only the rangefinder hoods are missing from this sprue, and those are offered on Sprue N.

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The rangefinders and funnel cap are most notable, the funnel grill is molded deeply but appears acceptable and not overly thick, and the radar grills are particularly fine for styrene. Obviously, PE versions of the grill and radars would look better, but the injected parts are very serviceable. 

The second sheet continues with the step-by-step assembly and includes plan and line drawing views in full color. The color scheme is that of Bismarck after leaving Norway and breaking out into the Atlantic. There are also color callouts for painting keyed to Mr. Hobby, Tamiya and WEM colors. The last full page is devoted to the assembly and painting of the Arado AR196.

The progressive assembly instructions are a bit on the small side, so careful attention must be paid to the parts actually indicated by number. Plus, there are a great many subassemblies. Given the scope and complexity of the kit, I think it necessary to actually take some real time to review the instructions in depth before starting. 

Though not an expert on Bismarck or the Kriegsmarine, I strongly suspect the accuracy of the details to match the level of detail. The kit certainly compares well with the reference material I have on hand. I also suspect the bowing of the forward hull to be correctable without extraordinary measures. That’s my hope, anyway. I also expect the fit to be generally superior all around, if my test fits of the parts are any indication.

There will be some who are dismayed by the high number of parts, which really does complicate assembly. The high number of parts also adds complexity to the following of the instructions, as it takes additional study to ensure proper assembly. The relatively small size and print of the instruction sheet doesn’t help matters either. Enlarging the instructions by 25% seems like a no brainer to me. 

Nonetheless, if you’re a fan of the ship, and/or of a high quality 1/700 kit, then this kit is for you. I would say that Flyhawk’s attempt to burnish its reputation has paid off. Highly recommended. 

The list retail price is approximately US $75, though this kit is available from most shops for less here in the US and on-line. Many thanks to FlyHawk Models for the review sample.