Kleiner Flugzeugträger "Rhein", January 1944

The ship:
Germany started to build its first aircraft carrier, the "Graf Zeppelin" before WW2, but its construction was halted in April of 1940. In mid 1942 it got obvious that a carrier was needed and therefore construction resumed with a planned completion date of winter 1943.
At the same time, several other carrier projects were planned or started, like the conversion of the almost complete CA Seydlitz or plans to convert several passenger ships into carriers.

One of those projects was the "Kleiner Flugzeugträger Rhein", a converted merchant ship which got completed in March of 1943.
The "Rhein" was the coveted merchant ship "Wuppertal", a diesel-powered ship that was also considered to be modified into an auxiliary cruiser to operate as a merchant raider. Instead, the ships superstructure was removed, an open hangar deck integrated and a flight deck was added. The ship had a rather big islandstructure for its size and was armed with four 10,5 cm AA guns plus some smaller 2 cm light guns distributed around the flight deck. The ship could carry up to 10 aircraft which were transported to the flight deck by a single elevator.
When the ship was nearing its completion in early 1943, it got more and more obvious that the Luftwaffe had no real suitable aircraft available. Therefore, those aircraft, initially build for the Graf Zeppelin, some Me109T and Ju87 – had to collected from various Luftwaffe units and prepared for carrier operations.

After its completion, the ship started training exercises in the Baltic Sea and by early August, it was sent off to Norway to assist the heavy Kriegsmarine units there.
During its first Operation – "Operation Sizilien" – the attack on allied bases on Spitzbergen in September 1943, it soon got obvious that the ships top speed of 18kn was too slow for fleet operations. However, during the attack, the Ju87 Stuka could be used to support the attack and provide useful recon data. But this operation was the only one, the Rhein took part.

After the loss of the battleship Scharnhorst in December 1943, the Rhein was ordered back to the Baltic Sea in January 1944 where the ship was decommissioned in Kiel.

In May of 1945, the ship was scuttled besides other Kriegsmarine ships in the Heikendorf Bight and was scrapped between 1947 and 1948

The model shows the Rhein during its transfer back to Germany in January 1944.




Flight deck details:








Together with a two German destroyers (Z38 back, ZE-Class front)


Together with TFA-7


Together with Panzerschiff Deutschland/CA Lützow


Together with carrier "Manfred von Richthofen"


The model:
This is the second of my set of three different CVEs. When creating the model, I could not decide which country variant I should choose, so I printed all of them. The model is complete 3D printed in 1/700 scale except a few smaller parts like AA guns.

The hull is base on the 3D model "1/350 WW1 US Cargo ship (EFC 1020) "Laker" by decapod on Thingiverse (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3422471). I re-scaled the model to 1/700 and removed the superstructure.

The ship hull, hangar deck and flight deck are all printed with a FDM printer, all other parts are made with a Resin printer. The aircraft are 3D printed as well, only the Me109 was taken form the spare part box.

Guns and mast are taken from the spare part box, all other parts are designed and printed by me. Additional PE crew was used.

The model is painted with Revel Aqua Color.

Come out really well 

Nicely inventive.   

Looks good!

Take-off would have been "interesting" from such a short flight deck.

TomZ