Manufacturer: Heller
Scale: 1/400
Additional parts: parts from a Mirage Tarantul, PE crew
Model build: Jun - Aug 2012
Volksmarine Flottenraketenboot Rosa Luxemburg
Heller / Mirage
1/400
1/400
Last Voyage
0:00
Made with Suno
Last Voyage (metal version)
0:00
Made with Suno
Red Rosa
The icy spray stung Kapitänleutnant Klaus Weber's face as he squinted through the bridge windows. Dawn bled pink and gold across the choppy Baltic, casting a long, wavering shadow from the Flottenraketenboot "Rosa Luxemburg" slicing through the waves. The old girl, a relic of a bygone era, hummed with the familiar thrum of her high-pressure steam turbines. Today, they were on a live-fire exercise, a chance to test the Rosa's might against a decommissioned Volksmarine frigate, the "Stettin."
Klaus, a seasoned captain with a sardonic wit and a fierce loyalty to his crew, gripped the bridge railing. The Rosa Luxemburg, nicknamed "The Red Rosa," was an anachronism, bristling with Soviet weaponry on a hull that first saw service during the Second World War. Despite her age, she was surprisingly nimble, a quality crucial for today's exercise.
"Enemy vessel detected, bearing 1-8-0, distance 10 nautical miles," the radar officer declared, his voice cutting through the steady hum of the engines. A spark of excitement danced in Klaus's eyes. This was it.
"Battle stations!" he barked. The familiar drill unfolded – hatches clanged shut, crew scrambled to their positions, the hum of the engines rose a notch. The steely grey hull of the Stettin emerged from the mist, its decommissioned guns replaced with harmless sensor buoys.
Klaus maneuvered the Rosa with practised ease. Dodging and weaving, he used the islands scattered across the training zone as cover in a game of cat and mouse. The Stettin's radar pinged, searching. "They've detected us, Captain!" the radar officer yelled. Alarms blared on the bridge.
"Full speed ahead! Evasive maneuvers!" Klaus shouted. The Rosa surged forward, the water churning beneath her bow. The Stettin responded, its simulated radar tracking them. Two dummy missiles launched from the Stettin, leaving white trails in their wake.
The Rosa's anti-aircraft guns roared to life, their tracers filling the air. The missiles exploded harmlessly a distance away.
"Target in range, Captain!" the weapons officer announced. Klaus locked onto the Stettin's simulated heat signature. This was the moment of truth. Today, they weren't using the powerful Sunburn missiles, just the older Styx missiles – two supersonic missiles with enough punch to sink a small ship.
"Fire!" Klaus barked. Two streaks of flame erupted from the launchers on the deck, leaving a trail of smoke as they arced towards the Stettin.
Tension hung heavy in the air as everyone watched. Had they hit? Had they overshot? Just before reaching the target, the missiles veered off course, exploding harmlessly in the water. A collective groan rose from the bridge crew.
"Malfunction in the targeting system!" the weapons officer cursed. Klaus gritted his teeth. They were close, but not close enough.
"Alright, crew," he boomed, his voice firm despite the setback. "We're going in for a closer attack. Gunners, focus on the simulated bridge! Show them the Rosa Luxemburg still packs a punch!"
With renewed determination, Klaus steered the Rosa into a daring run, using the cover of a smokescreen launched from a nearby support vessel. They closed the distance, dodging dummy fire from the Stettin. The Rosa's guns opened up, strafing the Stettin's superstructure with a hail of fire.
The exercise ended with the Rosa flanking the Stettin, her guns trained on the simulated bridge. It wasn't a perfect run, but it wasn't a failure either. As the crews of both ships exchanged good-natured taunts on the radio, Klaus knew one thing for sure: the Rosa Luxemburg, a veteran of two navies and a relic of the past, was still a force to be reckoned with. And under his command, she wouldn't go down without a fight.
The Flottentorpedoboot 1939
After the unsuccessful Torpedoboot 1935 and Torpedoboot 1937 a radical change in German torpedo boat design took place. Unlike their predecessors which were focused on Torpedo attacks, the new class of Fleet torpedo boats were multi purpose ships, usable for torpedo attacks, anti aircraft defense and escort duty.
Those ships were more a light destroyer than the classical torpedo boat and the last torpedo boats build in Germany. Since they got the engines of already ordered but later canceled ships of the Torpedoboot 1937 class, they were about 1,5 kn slower than those ships, but they were the best seagoing ships of their kind in the Kriegsmarine.
Since many of those ships only got operational in 1943 or later, they were mainly used in the Baltic Sea only, but some of the earlier ships saw intensive operations in France at the time of the allied invasion.
Several ships survived World War 2 and served in the French or Russian navy until the 1950s.
This ship is the former T33. Laid down at Schichau Elbing, 1942, it was launched on 04.09.1943 and commissioned on 15.06.1944. The building costs were 5,7 Mio Reichsmark.
Flottentorpedoboot T33 was attached to the 5th torpedo boat flotilla after being commissioned. It supported retreating German army units in the Baltic Sea and survived the war. Handed over to the Russians, it entered Soviet Navy lists on 05.11.1945 and taken over by a Russian crew on 01.01.1946. Transferred to Libau on 05.01.1946 it was renamed to Primernyy on 13.02. Between 15.02.1946 and 21.12.1955 the ships was part of the North Baltic fleet, on 30.11.1954 it was converted into a floating barrack and renamed to PKZ-63 on 28.12.1954. Removed from the fleet lists on 09.11.1956, it was scraped in Tallin in 1957-1958.
So far about real-life. Now lets come to what-if.....
Flottenraketenboot
When East-Germany officially got its army (and navy) in March 1956, it was in need of ships that could be used to be a counterpart for the aggressive West-German Bundesmarine. So besides the smaller vessels, East-Germany received from the Soviet Union, the former T33 - now Primernyy - was also given to the Volksmarine. Altough the ship was now unarmed, it was in a still acceptable overall condition, and the Volksmarine was able to find former Kriegsmarine engeers and crew to be able to operate the complex high-preasure steam turbines. The ship was named "Rosa Luxemburg", after the famous revolutionary socialist killed in 1919.
First equipped with 4 Soviet build 100-mm guns, the ship was modernized in the following years. In 1959 it was equipped with four SS-N-2 twin launchers, making it the strongest armed ship of the Volksmarine at that time. It was now reclassified as "Flottenraketenboot".
The last big modernization was made in 1983, when two of the SS-N-2 launchers were replaced by two SS-N-22 twin launchers. At that time, the ship carried the follwing weapon systems:
2 x 1 76-mm-L/60-Geschütz AK-176M
3-4 30-mm-L/54 AK-630M
2 × 2 P-15M (SS-N-2 Styx)
2 × 2 P-80 (SS-N-22 Sunburn)
After unification of Germany, the ship got part of the German Navy, but not put into active service again. Altough it was the last suviving ship of its kind, it could not be saved for a musuem and it was sold to be scrapped in the mid 1990.
The model is mainly build form a 1:400 scale Heller Flottentorpedoboot kit, plus a Mirage Tarantul I and Tarantul III for the Soviet weapons and sensors. On the location of the former torpedo tubes, additional decks for the missle-launchers were added. The masts were build with modern sensors and the ship got a typical color scheme as it was used on Volksmarine ships in the 1980s. The crew is a 1/350 scale Eduard Kriegsmarine set, but as the siize difference is not that big, they can be used on 1:400 scale as well.
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