by Atle Ellefsen
1/500 M/S Pilsudski (Mirage Hobby)
Mirage Hobbies’ 1/500 scale Pilsudski and Batory is one of very few injection kits of liners from the inter-war period. It is sold with different box-art and decals for a choice of the two sisters, the only difference being that the Pilsudski lacks the bulky antenna on the wheelhouse roof, the figurehead and the two kingposts directly forward of her superstructure. I have chosen to build the model, with the usual considerable level of artistic licence, as the Pilsudski as she might have looked in her very short career as a troop transport.
Pride of the Polish merchant fleet, the Gdynia-America Line owned sisters were built by the Italian Triest-Monfalcone Cantieri Riuniti del’ Adriatico Shipyard. The Pilsudski was delivered in August 1935, her sister Batory in April 1936. Their Italian heritage is palpable in their design – albeit they were affectionately called the “Little Queen Elizabeth's” due to their resembling profile. Entering service on the Gdynia – New York service, the sisters had very different fates in store. The Batory survived the war as a troop transport, re-entering service to New York in 1947 until 1951 when she, as an Eastern Block ship was declared unwanted in the US. Instead she changed to the India run, was modernized in 1957 and finally scrapped in 1971. She was the lucky ship. Not so with the Pilsudski.
Placed under British control at the outbreak of war, she was subsequently re-fitted as an armed troop transport. Setting out from Newcastle for Australia on the 26th of November 1939, something hit her and exploded as she was off the mouth of the Humber River. Clouded in controversy, some said it was a German torpedo, which was good for Nazi propaganda. But it was allegedly an allied mine, which was understandably bad for morale at the time. The ship immediately listed 10 degrees and sank 4 hours later with ten dead. Captain Mamert Stankiewicz stayed aboard till the end, seeing all his crew off the ship, the tragic circumstances of his death making him a national hero. The wreck lies at only 22 meters depth and was visited by a diving expedition in 2003. Only the bow section seems to be intact.
Correct in scale, it’s a nice kit but has its challenges. The best details are the perfectly scribed deck planking and the small deck parts such as ventilation cowls. The hull part has moulded-in windows and portholes, albeit somewhat flimsy and inaccurate they can pass. The superstructure lacks any windows or other detailing. There is something wrong with the upper decks assembly in relation to the hull length, if you align the boat deck aft stairwell openings as a reference point, the assembly is too long to fit the superstructure front where it is supposed to be so I had to grind off about 3 mm of the forward deck-edge. Most of the nice pillars moulded to the underside of the aft decks were broken off already in the box, so I had to scratch-build all these using stretched sprue. There are also missing pillars elsewhere, for example under the aft docking bridge. There is a conspicuous amount of flash, but once removed the deckhouses, funnels and casings are crisp overall and with some effort it builds into a very nice model. After all, the challenges are part of the fun of modelling. The decals are OK but the great figurehead plaque is much too large so I left it out. One day I want to learn how to make my own decals.
Cutting off the underwater hull and stiffening it with cross-ties, I set it on a home-made base plate. The portholes were drilled out with a 0.95mm bit. I used Gold Medals’ PE set 1:500 Fine Railings and Ladders, with some additional PE parts from the scrap box. Masts were replaced with brass rods. I tried to taper them by fixing lengths to the Dremel and holding the end with folded emery paper, but it turned out to be dangerous. It gets real hot, you lose grip and everything goes crazy. I was proud of my Dremel, but now I wonder what to use it for. Its too brutal for making small model boats or mixing paint. Probably comes in handy when building like a house or something. Anyway, I finally gave that up. Drainpipes, various deck lockers, doors, this and that etc. were made out of Evergreen stock and other debris. The rafts and guns were cut from a spare Airfix HMS Belfast kit (I know you hams it’s all wrong but my friends, relatives and neighbours will never know). Rig is stretched sprue, and the superstructure windows are cut from draughtsman’s foil coloured with a black permanent marker. I also fitted degaussing cables (from the QM set) just for fun.
The colours of hull and superstructure are also chosen with artistic licence, since she had a minute career as an armed merchant cruiser there was little I could find of references. A few artist impressions, and a statement from one of the hearings that they left port with a black hull and grey superstructure. To dampen the black starkness to scale I mixed in about 40% grey. Weathering powder is from Artitec, applied sparingly in way of some rust, soot and salt streaks.
The water was created in modelling clay, painted in grey-greenish algae-in-Tyne-river shade and covered by three layers of Warhammer water-effect. I spent 2 full evenings getting the wave propagation and wake right. Its important to study photographs of the ship under way.
The model was awarded third prize in its category, at the IPMS Norway nationals March 2007.
Attached is also a reference photo of the Batory kit, built full-hull out of the box in 1998.
She is on her way, just hours from disaster. Thanks to Mirage Hobbies of Poland for manufacturing a great subject for a narrow audience.
For more on the Pilsudski see the excellent web site http://members.lycos.co.uk/mspilsudski
Length of kit: 320 mm
Purchased at Hobbyland, Strommen, Norway
Principle particulars of ship:
