Bockenheim
German Sperrbrecher 14 

AJM Models. 1/700th scale resin.

Reviewed by Devin Poore, August 2021


 
Germany used Sperrbrecher, translated as "barrier breaker", during both world wars. While some of the ships were fitted with mine detection equipment, most of them were simply used as mine sponges. They would have their hulls significantly reinforced and other measures taken to increase their survivability, and then would travel suspected mined seaways in advance of cargo ships, warships, and other more "important" vessels, to take the brunt of the mines. During WWII, many of the ships were armed with many guns to perform double-duty as anti-aircraft vessels. 

Sperrbrecher 14 started life as the Norwegian cargo ship Tai Ping. Seized by Germany in 1940, she operated briefly as the cargo ship Bockenheim, before being commandeered by the German military. With her hull strengthened, multiple anti-aircraft guns added, and her holds filled with sand and other shock-absorbing materials,she commissioned as Sperrbrecher 14 in November 1940. After taking a direct mine hit in the course of her duties in 1942, she put into Bordeaux for repairs, only to be attacked by British commandos and permanently put out of action in December of that year. She was intentionally sunk as a block ship in 1944, where she remained for the rest of the war. She was finally raised in 1945 and towed to Spain for scrapping.
Sperrbrecher 5, pictured during WWII


 
 
HULL
The hull is a single piece with thinly cast bulwarks and supports along the sides. Details such as chocks, fillets, doors, hatches, and other details are very crisp. There are several fairleads recessed into the bulwark sides, but they do not penetrate; these will require a bit of drilling and scraping to open them up. The portholes are nicely aligned (this seems to be difficult, based upon a lot of resin kits I own), and look the part. Under magnification they appear a bit rounded at the edges, so the detail obsessive modeler may want to ream them out slightly with a drill bit to give a super-sharp appearance.

The raised decks have nicely rendered planking amid the hatches, chocks and bitts. The main deck has a slight texture to it, from either molding or machining, but it's very minimal and gets lost easily among the cargo hatch details; what there is should disappear under paint, and if not, it will give a nice worn feeling to these high-traffic areas.

Based upon a few sources, the full size Sperrbrecher 14 was around 147.5 meters long, which comes out to 8.29" in scale. The kit's hull measures out at 8.375" overall, which, at only .085", or 1/16", difference, is really close.
RESIN COMPONENTS
The remainder of the resin components of the ship are either in a plastic bag, or on a single casting wafer. The parts on the wafer include the upper level decks, gun tubs, levels for the bridge, and the cover for the main ship's hold. Detail is much like the hull: well defined and sharp. Here, as on the hull, planking detail is well-defined. The bridge windows are sharply rendered. It will take a little flush sanding on a sheet of preferably wet sand paper to remove these pieces from the casting wafer, but that shouldn't be much of a chore.

The plastic bag contains the rest of the resin components, including all of the very small parts such as the ventilator cowlings, life rafts, boats, and a ton of other small parts. All of the small detail will give a lot of detail and chatter to the finished ship, really bringing it to life. All parts are cast on typical resin runners, which should make removal and clean-up fairly straight-forward. There is no flash on any of the parts. 

My only issue with these parts are the same ones I have with most resin kits: I don't understand why delicate details are all put into a small plastic bag where they can jostle around and break off. In my kit, the part set labeled 24 in the inventory list had nearly every piece broken off of the runner, and even some of the larger ventilation cowlings had broken free. I'm certain that all of these parts will be found loose in the bag, and fortunately it looks as if all of the breaks are at the bottom of the parts and therefore the pieces will still be usable, but it would be so much nicer to have these things secured better within the box to avoid breakage.

BRASS and DECALS
The kit comes with a comprehensive sheet of photo etched brass for fine details. And when I say fine, I mean it: the brass sheet is is .003" (.1mm) thick. That's thinner than most office-quality printer paper. Extreme care will be needed while working with it. The usual details, such as ladders, railings and small boat davits are included, as well as components for the multi-part gun assemblies and other structures.

Several lengths of brass wire of various sizes are included, which are called out in the instructions for making various masts and antennas. A small decal sheet includes ship's flags, a large swastika deck marking, and Roman numerals for various hull numbers (these are in white and don't show up in my photo below).
INSTRUCTIONS
The instructions are printed on four pages, front and back, and include a photo inventory of all of the parts included. Detailed CAD drawings detail each step of construction, and while overall it looks as if they'll do a great job, there are a few places where a bit more detail would help. For example, Step 5 shows the assembly of the large forward gun mount platform; there are 12 different components in the assembly, and all are shown with leader lines pointing to the area they should be attached. A detailed "after assembly" drawing would help a lot with placement. The parts inventory on the first page will be very helpful during construction, as there are dozens of extremely small parts used during construction, and all of those parts are called in both the assembly steps and the inventory, which should make getting things where they need to go much easier.

The final two pages of the instructions are fairly detailed plan and profiles of the ship, in color, with Lifecolor paint callouts. There are even section views through the ship on the final page to show the camouflage patterns on the faces of the superstructure, stack, and other areas of the ship. A very nice touch.
CONCLUSIONS
This is a very well done kit of a very unique ship. The quality of the castings, and fineness of the small resin components and the etched brass are excellent. Due to that fineness of some of the parts, and especially the photo etch, I would recommend experience with another resin kit or two before tackling the Bockenheim, but for those up to it, they should be rewarded with a spectacular model. 

Highly recommended. Thank you to AJM Models for the review sample.

 

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