In NATO, Germany was tasked with denying the Soviet Fleet to leave the Baltic. To this end, the Bundesmarine (Federal navy, since our reunification Deutsche Marine – German navy) built and operated a succession of Schnellboot classes with a view to surprise attacks on enemy shipping. Earlier classes were an evolution of WW2 designs and armed primarily with torpedoes and AA guns. 

The introduction of guided missiles seriously increased the punch the vessels could pack, and the distance at which they could strike. The first guided missile boats, armed with the French Exocet, later to gain notoriety in the Falklands war, were the class 148. They were succeeded by the class 143 which was built in two sub-groups: Apart from the four Exocets common to both, 143 was fitted with two of the standard 3 inch Oto Melara guns, plus two torpedo tubes, whereas 143A received the RAM close range defensive missile system instead of the second gun turret and the torpedo tubes. After Germany's reunification and the resulting reduction in fleet size, the 143A vessels were retained and modernized while the 143's were sold off.

I started by replacing the rather featureless bases of the Exocet launchers, which originally are a sort of latticework construction. To build these parts from styrene stock, I needed multiple parts neatly cut in identical lengths and angles. To achieve this, I bought "The Chopper II" by NWSL, a very useful cutting tool. Thanks to Andreas Nickel of www.anfatman.de for providing this (at the time) hard to find tool. After removing the molded on bases and plating the holes in the deck over, I built four of the bases from styrene, each of them comprising about two dozen individual parts – quite a lot of work, but definitely worth it. The missile canisters themselves were further detailed as per reference images, adding their hinge mechanisms. The two aftermost canisters received blast deflectors. Even though what I did is not entirely correct, I feel it is an improvement over the kit parts. The RAM launcher was only detailed with some PE parts for steps and handholds. The blast deflector right ahead of the launcher was detailed by drilling some holes and adding loudspeakers.

When it came to "marrying" the superstructure to the hull, I ran into trouble. Despite all the dryfitting and removal of interfering locator pins I had done, it wouldn't fit. So I had to apply serious pressure and still ended up with annoying gaps to fill. Having completed that, I further detailed the superstructure. Some boxes for fire fighting equipment were added, with the typical labels designed and printed to size. I also added a "bridge art" I had seen in some reference images, a mink riding two missiles. I have no idea about the correct time frame for that, but I liked it and included it anyway. As in any project, there was a time when I thought I'd never get through cleaning up and painting all the small parts I had yet to add, especially as more of them popped up when looking through my references. So I added a bitt and another pre-wetting blast pipe with its protective wire frame to the stern. Now came another visible addition, the boat crane for the inflatable boat. It was built per reference images using styrene stock and generic PE. L'Arsénal's "Structural Parts" were again most helpful here.

To replace the oversize kit railings, I had bought PE stanchions of the required height and number of holes for the bars. Saemann has very useful PE parts for projects like this, highly recommended. Following the principle of working from the centerline of the model to the periphery, I started on the superstructure railings. Stanchion positions were identified and drilled, and the stanchions were then superglued. The vessel has both sections of railing with sturdy steel tubing and easily removable sections of railing with wire. Both sorts are present on the superstructure. As the holes in the stanchions are .3 mm in diameter, I had planned to use .2 mm brass wire for the wire sections. That worked fine and looked to scale even when painted. The larger diameter sections were individually cut and glued between the stanchions using .5 mm wire. That proved to be a lot of work, but looked convincing, too. Inclined bracing's were added from .3 mm brass wire. This wire was also used on the trickiest parts of the railings, those surrounding the life raft canisters on the main deck. Here, I carefully enlarged the holes in the stanchions to accept the stronger wire, and then bent three hopefully identical wire sections to shape. These were carefully threaded on the required number of stanchions, and the whole wibbly-wobbly assembly then glued into the pre drilled holes in the deck. Once glued, the railing was very sturdy throughout the ship. Right ahead from this part of the railing, three items had to be scratchbuilt on both sides of the vessel – a gangplank, a scrambling net and a box of - to me - unidentified purpose, in short a BOUP. My stock of styrene, PE and wire helped a lot, and surplus material from a screen door was well suited for the net. Building the rest of the railing was time consuming, yet not hard. I was pretty happy with the result in all its brass glory. Brush painting the entire assembly proved to be tedious and I needed several correction runs before the paint covered all the brass. Using a darker shade for the wire railings, I got pretty close to the look of the real thing and have to say this is the best looking railing I have built so far – in my eyes, obviously. 

Build time @ 150-200 hours.