Due to the absolute superiority of the Allied materiel at sea and in the air, from 1944 onwards warfare at sea became ever more difficult. The high-speed motor torpedo boats in the English Channel and also in the Baltic have been confronted with ever more frequent air attacks by a numerically superior enemy. Consequently, the efforts of the crews were primarily concentrated on higher fire power and higher speed as well as more effective air defence. This was considerably improved by the feared four-barrelled Flak
C 38 anti-aircraft gun. It was thanks to the Friedrich Lürssen Shipyard at Vegesack that the German Navy received a seaworthy fast patrol boat that permitted maximum speed and that had brilliant manoeuvrability even in heavy seas. Due to the balanced construction no major changes to the basic design were needed right up until the end of the war.

These fast patrol boats generally proved their worth on escort and protection duties, minefield reconnaissance patrols and above all in combating surface units and enemy submarines. They operated chiefly off the Dutch and French coasts, the English coast and the Channel and also the North Sea and the Baltic and were also used in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.

The final version was the Type S-100 that was produced after 1943 and can be regarded as the best high-speed torpedo boat of its period. The S-100 class was also called the “Calotte boat”, because it had a rounded armoured bridge made of welded segments (approx. 10-12 mm steel armour plate). The power plant consisted of three Daimler-Benz MB 511-V engines that jointly delivered about 7,500 hp, giving an outstanding speed of 43.5 knots (capable of briefly accelerating up to 48 knots). The boat was generally armed with two torpedo tubes and one 2 cm machine gun (Flak 38) in a rotating mount that could be lowered and amidships with a 2 cm twin-barrelled cannon on a pedestal mount. Later these were complemented by an eighth in-built 3.7 cm Flak 36. Thousands of soldiers, casualties and civilians owed their rescue and safe return from dangerous eastern territories to the S-boats which, due to their shallow draught, could operate close in to the coast.

This model in 1/72 scale consists of 244 single parts and when built together it has a length of 486 cm.

Paints Required : 5 9 57 75 77 88 92