Gunnar Sillén

JSC kits no 68 and 69, destroyers Halland and Småland and other Swedish navy ships.

Sweden officialy maintained neutrality in the cold war and therefore had to keep up a strong, modern and independent navy to balance the Soviet forces in the Baltic. The Swedish conditions with a long coastline and deep archipelagos was one of the parameters for the design of the ships as was collected experiences from the second world war. Thanks to Polish JSC, we have this year got the chance to build several of those ships as paper models in scale 1:400.

The Halland meets Torpedoboat

The destroyers “Halland” and “Småland” were built in the early 1950's and were very well suited for submarine chasing and for leading naval operations in also bad weather. The two ships were also among the earliest western ships planned for automatic guns and robots, even if the latter were not yet developed when the destroyers entered service. The JSC kit no 68 represent the “Halland” in camouflage paint as she was after her last big modernization in 1969. The kit no 69 gives you the chance to build the “Småland” as she was originally built or as she now, after all modifications, rests as a naval monument in Gothenburg.

With the Halland kit also comes an optional torpedoboat of the Plejad class. Those boats were also built in the early 50's and started the development of a fast and seaworthy fleet of small and effective ships. Eleven units were built from T 102 “Plejad” to T 112 “Astrea”. After discarding, many of the Plejad-boats were sold to private people and rebuilt to serve as yachts. One of them, T 103 “Polaris”, was even rigged as a schooner with three masts for charter sailing in the Mediterranian and the Atlantic. With the Småland kit comes kits for the motor torpedoboat “T 38” and some submarines. The “T 38” was one of ten boats built in the early 1950's as a Swedish development of an Italian construction. She is to-day preserved by a voluntary group and kept in working condition under the eyes of the Navy Museum in Karlskrona.

The six submarines of the “Hajen” class were also built in the early 50's and copied many war tested ideas from the latest German XXI-type submarines, one of which was sunk in Swedish waters during the last days of the second world war but lifted and examined. The boats were originally painted in a colourful camouflage. The kit shows this paint and gives parts for any of the six boats in the class. The kit also contains the submarine “Nordkaparen” that was built in the early 60's as a development of the “Hajen” boats and now serves as a museum ship in Gothenburg.

The building of the kits follows the JSC standard for their 1:400 ship models. The hulls are easily built up boxlike with inset formers and open bottoms. The detailing though is quite demanding as the parts are very small. I had to get new glasses to give them a chance. But, as I know the original ships, I am quite happy with the accuracy of the models. And there are no problems with the fit. Some loose stairways should be a little shortened, but that is just about all. The only problem is that especially “Halland” has been missfortuned by faulty printed numberings. But with the help of the sketches in the kit and your own thinking, you will have no great problems to get it right.

I have completed the kits with landscaping to give the models a surrounding typical for their time. The “Halland” is shown in a “war mooring” and for “Småland” I built a protecting box in the form of one of the docks at the Muskö naval yard. All landscaping including still or spouting water is formed by painted paper. The water though laquered wit boat varnish.

Gunnar Sillén November 2003