Comrades rejoice!

[Joe C-P]

First I've finished in a while. Others to follow once I have obtain a new tube of filler.









Battleship Potemkin

This was the ship that kept the battleship alive until the 1980s.

After attempting unsuccessfully to build both battleships and battlecruisers during World War 2, in the early 1950s the Soviets were detected assembling a mixture of leftover parts from those projects combined with a new hull. Utilizing the giant covered dock originally meant for the Soyuz class BBs, the ship was built under cover and away from the eyes of Western aircraft and personnel.

When she emerged from the covered dock in late 1953, Western analysts pored over the initial blurry photos, and then later, clearer photos as the ship took its shakedown cruise on the Baltic. The ship was very different to previous Soviet designs, and some considered it under-armed, with only 5 main guns, all forward like the French Richelieu and Jean Bart. Others looked at the long, pointed hull and deemed the ship to be a classic battlecruiser, able to outrun the West's few big gun ships and with enough firepower to handle any smaller ship. It could, in theory, break out of the Baltic like Bismarck and smash into NATO convoys across the Atlantic. If paired with one of the Soviet's fast carriers they could be a threat.

Even more startling was what happened four hours after the ship disappeared into its covered dock - a second ship pulled out, with different armament and electronics and carrying a different pennant number. This second ship took its shakedown cruise, fired off its guns, and a couple days later sailed back into the covered dock.

The appearance of not one, but two, battlecruisers sent the West scrambling to return their few battleships to service. The USN had taken their remaining fast battleships in hand for conversion to BBGs (Iowas) or BLHs (SoDaks), so they quickly brought West Virginia and Colorado out of mothballs until the more modern ships could be brought back. The RN kept Vanguard in service and considered bringing Howe or Anson back, though only kept them in reserve longer than desired.
France ensured either Richelieu or Jean Bart would be in service at any given time. Italy convinced their former foes to allow them to modernize Andrea Doria and Caio Dulio, keeping one in service at a time like the French. Even Turkey sent their WWI-era battlecruiser Yavuz to West Germany for a rebuild and upgrade, even though her ten 11" guns and thin armor would have been no match for the Soviet's new 16" guns vessel.

Through the 50s and into the 60s one ship would emerge from the giant hangar-like dock, sail the Baltic for a couple days, or even venture into the North Sea or off Norway, then return to the dock, to be followed a few hours later by its sister ship, which would spend a day sailing the Baltic, and then disappear back into the dock for some months.

Western intelligence managed to obtain possible names of the ships - Potemkin and Sovietsky Soyuz.

The Cuban missile crisis allowed the West, though, managed to ferret out one of the secrets. One of the ships sailed during the height of the crisis, and while the hangar doors were open an agent managed to snap photos inside that showed there was no other ship. This soon lead to nearly all the remaining battleships being retired. Other than the US, only France kept the Jean Bart as a training ship. And the Soviets stopped the dual sailings.

By 1972 even the USN had retired all their pre-Iowa class, and was keeping only one BCG deployed to the UK and one working up; all the SoDaks had been retired after serving in Vietnam, carrying troops and shelling Vietcong and North Vietnamese positions.

The USN managed to keep up the Iowas into the 1980s, when the requirement was suddenly eliminated. The battlecruiser emerged one last time from its hangar, this time under tow, stripped of all electronic gear and lighter weapons. It ended up at a breaker beach in India, where it was beached. As it was taken apart, the NATO allies realized they'd been had. The ship had minimal armor and no real accommodation spaces. The Potemkin had caused the West to spend millions of dollars to keep essentially obsolete ships in service, depriving them of the money to build more modern ships which might have been more useful in combating the Soviet fleet. The analysts who'd long propounded astonishing capabilities to this ship were publicly humiliated, and once the Iron Curtain came down ex-Soviet Navy personnel revealed they'd been keeping scrapbooks of the many articles about their "little tease".

This model represents the ship in its April 1962 appearance.

[anthonyp]

COMRADE!!!!

Is GLORIOUS day in GREAT Soviet Union!!!

Such a creative and inspired deception of the the lazy and decadent West deserves a supertanker of Vodka for you and your OKB!!!

ZA RODINA!!!

Comrade Colonel Anatoly Iosef Pakizorich, naval aviation bureau


Nice one, Joe!  Wish I could convince myself to pick up a paint brush again, I'd have a few of the West's responses to your build  

That is one seriously nice looking ship.  What'd you build her out of again?

[rickshaw]

Appears some people forgot the meaning of the word "Potemkin"   

[Sauragnmon]

The superstructure's a Bismarck - even to the point he's still got some of the 10.5cm gun director domes on the sides.  The upper main gun looks like it was taken from an Arizona almost, not sure about the heavy secondaries, which look almost like Hipper mounts.  The way the hull is, I'm guessing it's scratchbuilt, but I do like that sleek outline.  The 76 and 57mm mounts look to be from a Skywave set - those are the cool open quad 57's I'd love to figure out a ship to fit them to.

[Sisko]

Nice ship build!

With the surge in ship models lately I am serious thinking of breaking from the norm and doing some Whif ships!

[Doc Yo]

 I think I liked the back story as much as the build! Nice work, Joe.

[Brian da Basher]

It's great to see more ship whiffs, and few can build them to your level of excellence, Joe!

Brian da Basher

[Joe C-P]

The hull and part of the superstructure are basswood, carved to the sketch. (I'll try to find that original drawing sketch.)
More of the superstructure and largest secondaries are from Bismarck; the post-war Soviets were somewhat influenced by German designs (see Sverdlovs and Skorys), and I had leftover bits from my Japanese Tirpitz.
The main guns are from an Iowa, which I had upgraded with third-party turrets and guns.
The remaining bits and pieces are leftovers from various Soviet builds.

rickshaw: I very much know of the _original_ Potemkin.  If you don't, please do go look up the term "Potemkin Village".  ;-)

anthonyp: 

I, though, am suffering putty withdrawal symptoms. I cannot build until I find a tube! I've been to four (non-hobby) stores and been unsuccessful. Once acquired I have three more subjects nearly done, and then can start on my ASW V-22 and real-world USS Midway and New Jersey diorama.

[Thorvic]

Nice build Joe and amusing backstory full of Cold War mind games, considering the hype and reaction to the Soviet Svedlovs, a fast battlecruiser would have indeed provoked a Naval Arms race.

I do wonder if it may have led to NATO heavy duty Anti-Ship missiles in a similar style to the ones the Soviets designed to strike  super carriers ?.

G

[rickshaw]

rickshaw: I very much know of the _original_ Potemkin.  If you don't, please do go look up the term "Potemkin Village".  ;-)

I suspect you did.  I was surprised that the NATO intelligence analysts appear to have forgotten what it was... 

[Sauragnmon]

It might have, Thorvic.  I don't know though, as primarily the reason the Russians have such hard-hitting missiles isn't just for hitting supercarriers, the Russians in general don't like this concept of Mission Kill - they go straight past the Mission point and go for Hard Kill.  They like Guderians words like I do - Don't Tickle, Smash.

[Joe C-P]

Hmm. Anti-ship Regulus? With a shaped-charge warhead?

[Sauragnmon]

Anti-ship Bloodhound?  Anti-ship Hound Dog with Conventional Warhead?