Hayreddin Barbarossa (Turkish: Barbaros Hayrettin; birth name Hızır) was a famous commander-in-chief of the Ottoman navy during the 1500s. Along with his brother Oruç, he was leader of the corsair enclaves out of modern-day Algeria and Libya. His repeated victories against other European navies and coastal fortresses caught the attention of Ottoman Sultan Suleiman and in 1532, he was appointed Grand Admiral of the Ottoman Navy and Chief Governor of North Africa despite the protests of more conservative members in the Sultan's bureaucracy. Barbarossa's prowess was so well-known throughout the Mediterranean that the French king Francis I asked for, and received, an Ottoman alliance in order to better carry out the struggle against his Spanish-Italian rivals. In 1538, Barbarossa's galley fleet achieved Mahan's elusive fleet battle victory against the combined might of the Holy League, decisively securing Ottoman command of the Mediterranean Sea for the next 33 years until the 1571 Battle of Lepanto - even after which the Ottomans quickly rebuilt their fleet and continued to be a major, if not uncontested, naval power for the next several centuries.

The Ottoman battleships Barbaros Hayrettin and Turgut Reis were members of the Imperial German Brandenburg class predreadnoughts, originally named Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm and Weissenburg. Purchased as part of the Ottoman Navy's desperate attempt to counter Greek naval expansion, they were the first modern capital ships in the Empire's steam navy. Their most unusual feature were the three semi-spherical turrets housing dual 11" guns each - a drastic departure from contemporary two-by-two layouts and giving them somewhat of a firepower advantage. However, they came just a few short years before the arrival of HMS Dreadnought fundamentally changed the calculation of naval power, rendering them obsolete fairly shortly. During the Dardanelles campaign, their low-elevation guns were of no use against the Allied armada trying to make their way through to Istanbul, and could only provide some fire support once the Allies landed at Gallipoli. Barbaros Hayrettin herself was in the midst of delivery ammunition to Ottoman troops in the Marmara Sea when she was sunk by the British submarine E-11, which had managed to make her way through the hundreds of mines spanning the Dardanelles narrows and against its strong currents. Over 250 men perished in the sinking, the survivors picked up by Ottoman torpedo boats.

Combrig's kit of Barbaros Hayrettin contains almost the same parts as their kit of the ship in German service (reviewed here), with two major but subtle exceptions. Firstly, the hull is different in that the Ottoman version has filled in the deck edge cutouts for the bow anchors, as well as having one extra secondary gun port on each side of the hull. Secondly, the aft superstructure block's portholes lack the square protrusion on which they are sited in the German variant, in addition to gaining several more portholes. The other major differences are reflected in the instruction callouts - different searchlight platforms on the masts as well as making use of the PE gunshields for some of the small guns. The instructions in the Ottoman version (as well as the Brandenburg and Weissenburg kits) are significantly more detailed than the one in the 1894 Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm variant. Those building the latter kit may wish to consult the instructions for former kits instead (available at the bottom of this review and on Combrig's website).

Dimension-wise, the kit hull appears to be spot-on if the "Length Between Perpendiculars" given in Ahmet Güleryüz and Bernd Langensiepen's The Ottoman Steam Navy, 1828-1923 was interpreted as the waterline length: 16.3 cm in the kit versus 16.28 cm as calculated, and the beam is 2.8 cm measured versus 2.78 cm calculated - well within measurement error.
 

Deck planking is recessed and sharply done, as are the coaling scuttles and placement guides for the various parts. The bollards and deck fittings are all intact and sharply done as well. Overall, typical high-quality casting from Combrig.

This is kit #70432 -1/700 Turkish "Hayreddin Barbarossa" Battleship, 1915 fit. Thanks to Combrig for the review sample.