SNELLBOOTE- German WWII fast attack crafts

During WWII the Germans perfected the fast attack torpedoboats ending with the S-100 class with armoured bridge and enclosed torpedo tubes. These fast vessel created havoc among allied skipping and caused grave consern befire D-day. Happily the Germans lacked production facilities and materials late in the war so the number of S-boats in operation was rather few - same story as with the Germans U-boats. After the war some of the boats were taken over by the Danish Royal Navy and was so popular that a series of improved boats - the Flyvefisken Class - later was built at the Navy's Holmen Shipyard.

I have always found these boats very interesting and when in the mid 80's I was into radio controlled Scale Model Boats, I decided to build a working model. At first I opted for a 1/35 scale model as there was a German company producing a kit for the S-100 in this scale. However I wanted something bigger in order to accommodate R/C equipment and motors and batteries. I ordered the building plans for the 1/35 boat and enlarged them to 1/25 by photocopying. My experience in building boats like this from schratch was zero, but I threw myself into the project and was lucky to find some more detailed 1/25 plans for the boat, which helped a lot. My experience from building plastic models was of course a good background also.

My hobby room was only 2,5 x 3,5 meters and the boat was 128cms long and 25cms wide, so space was a problem.

The finished model in my home (1985) and sailing in a pond near Fredericia same year. The model had three big motors and sufficent power to make it look like the original a full speed. It also had a Robbe "Grossdiesel" sound unit coupled to the speed control so the engine noise rose with increased speed.

  My boat at a competition i Haderslev in 1986. The boat was extremely difficult to navigate in the harbour (top left) due to its shape. But it looked good both in and out of the water.

The model was later repainted to represent one of the boats of the Danish Navy after WWII. I donated the model to the Danish Naval Museum (Marinemuseet), which was established in the late 80's and which had a large collection of models of Danish Naval ships from 1600 and onwards. The pictures are from the museums storage facilities at Quinti Lynette a Holmen (former Danish Royal Navy Shipyard) in 1988.

The pictures above and right are taken in the Naval Museum before the opening when the first exhibition was established. The model is still at the museum but is not on permanent exhibition - a fate it shares with a lot of the museum's large number of models.