An icon of the Battle of the Atlantic, the German pocket battleship Graf Spee struck fear in merchant sailors in 1939. Academy now offers an excellent 1/350 Graf Spee with lots of appeal. The kit is well molded in light gray plastic with distinct portholes, doors, hatches, and planking. Plastic railings are included, but look a little heavy. Inclined ladders are molded separately. All parts are free of flash and need little cleanup. You can build the ship as a waterline model, but I chose the full hull.

Be sure to drill out the holes for the stand. I glued the hull halves and the aft deck (Part A1) together and let them dry, joined the two main deck parts, then sanded and scribed the seam. (Had Academy moved the seam aft 3/4' there would have been far less sanding and smoothing.) Then I attached the deck with Model Master liquid cement, a glue that gives you the strength and the working time needed for the hull's long seams; generous amounts of masking tape held the hull together while it dried. The rest of the hull construction was a snap, though I did wait until the model was nearly finished before adding small parts and railings.

This is an Academy plastic model kit. The Admiral Graf Spee was a famous German Pocket Battleship in WWII, credited with sinking nine allied ships. Academy's 1/350 scale plastic model kit is a very accurate replica of this notorious ship. One month after Trumpeter's release of the 1/350 Prinz Eugen heavy cruiser, comes a 1/350 Admiral Graf Spee. This second Kriegsmarine release for 2009, coupled with the Academy release of Graf Spee and the announced Scharnhorst from Dragon Models, is welcome news for the modeler of German naval subjects, and 1/350 modelers in general.

The main and secondary guns are sharply molded. The barrels of the 11' guns have the muzzle bore molded in. The main turrets will require a putty or a small amount of sheet stock to fill the gap where parts A18 and A19 meet. The 37mm guns are good, but the 20mm weapons look oversized, thick and clunky.

Superstructure assemblies went together easily with the exception of the main tower. I had difficulty getting the bridge wings (parts E-18-19 and E22-25) to fit. The parts are a bit oversized, so test-fit and sand to fit. I painted these parts prior to assembly, as the decks would be difficult to paint after the tower is together.

The rest of the kit posed no problems. The Arado Ar 196 floatplane would benefit from photoetched-metal struts. The masts are inaccurate and have no braces, but can be replaced with brass stock. The painting instructions and box art were not useful. I referenced Kreigsmarine Colors, Vol.

1 (AJ Press) and chose an early scheme of hellgrau 50 on the hull, using a variety of Floquil, Model Master, and Humbrol paints to match Snyder & Short naval color chips. The deck is RAF middlestone. I used several different Berol Prissmacolor pencils to highlight the planks and give the deck some life.

Although the decals are beautifully printed, each swastika must be assembled from five pieces. I spent about 28 hours building the kit, most of it masking. The model's dimensions are accurate, and I am happy with the results.

Academy's kit is a great value that should appeal to 'out of the box' builders as well as superdetailers.

I thought this was a great model to build, as you may have read my other reviews. This is not a great model, just a good one. Although, it does look great finished.

225. 227. Ghost Recon 2 s60v3 240x320 by kriker.jar. 226. Glory of roman empireSeries60v3.Com.jar.

The problems involved were actually in the instructions stated in a previous review. The camouflage colors are kind of hard to find as well. This kit has a few instruction problems, but they're not that hard to overcome.

So overall, i enjoyed this kit, it was nice to build and it looks great finished. Oh, one more thought. You can make the main turrets and main AA guns movable, though the AA guns are just up and down, they need to be glued in otherwise unless you know the model wont be touched when its done.

This is a review of the Graf Spee Pocket Battleship, Academy Plastics, 1/350 (ACY14103). The model was rated on a scale from 1 -10 with one being very bad and ten being excellent.

I will rate three areas; detail, instructions and the provided Paint and Marking guide. I liked the model and it was fun to put together but there were issues that made assembly frustrating at times.I would rate the model a seven (7) based on the scale mentioned above.My comments:Detail: The overall detail was good. The decking was done well as were the hatches and doors that could be easily seen and painted. The two cranes had enough detail to make them look pretty good once string was attached to simulate cable.

The supplied railings were the standard plastic type and replacing them with medal etched parts would have taken the model up a couple of levels. However, the supplied railings were well made and there was zero flash attached to any of them. Speaking of flash there was almost none at all on any part used. There was one area that needs work and I did not notice until later. Parts A18/A19 forms the top and bottom of the two main gun turrets.

When glued together there are two fairly large holes on either side of the turrets. This detracts from the overall look of the turrets and when building the holes should be patched and sanded before painting.

On my scale I would rate the models detail an eight (8).Instructions: Over all the instructions were easy to read and understand but there are several parts and pieces that do not come together well. First, step six (6) (c) and parts D21/D22. This step is very clear about where to place these parts but doing so will interfere with the placement of the railing (G22) later in constructions. You will either have to modify the railing to fit or move D21/D22 inboard some to allow the placement of the railing. Step seven (7) attaching parts E18/E19 and E22-E25 was more of a challenge than I would have liked and once attached did not look realistic.

If I understood the instructions there should be no gap between the bridge tower and each front facing wings' wall. However, I was unable to get that to happen without modifying the parts adding construction time and there was no way to tell if the end result would have been worth the effort and there was a possibly of damaging parts. Parts D2/D3 are shown being attached to parts E1/E2. The instructions do not clearly show the bottom of part D2/D3 and its’ small extension that fits into the hole in the top of E1/E2. It appears that this assembled part should not be glued into the top of E1/E2 which would allow D2/D3 to rotate. If that was the intent then it should have been indicated and clearly shown.

I ended up gluing this part to the top of E1/E2 due to a very loose fit. Step seven (7) shows illustrations of the bridge and a mast directly behind and attached to the bridge. This caused some confusion as the construction of the mast and its’ attachment to the bridge are not actually done until step eight (8).

Step eight (8) (b) illustrates the assembly of the twin 88’s that are attached to the bridge assembly (h) completed in step seven (7). Unfortunately the bottom of B20 does not fit onto the deck as indicted because both the bottom of B20 and the indicated spot on the deck are both round circles of the same size. This made the placing of the guns difficult adding unnecessary time to construction. On my scale I would rate the models detail a six (6).Paint and Marking Guide: Academy provided a good paint and marking guide which included a list of twelve colors and different manufactures including manufacturers corresponding product color code. The guide itself was in black and white and did not provide much help as to which colors go where, but in their instructions if a color other than gray was appropriate it was indicated.

There was one problem however; they indicate that the hull should be painted Hull Red nine (9) and Flat Black six (6) on their guide. Since the guide is printed in black and white there is no way to determine what is expected to be painted black. The instructions were of no help and the box which had many pictures of the finished model did not show any black on the hull. I made an assumption that a black stripe could be pained around the hull of the ship between the upper and lower hull but pictures on the box did not show this stripe. On my scale I would rate the models detail an eight (8).