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Model comes on wood base with solid brass pedestals

(image of model not yet available)

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The five ships of the Admiral Hipper Class of heavy cruisers were laid down from 1935 to 1936. At the time German ships were not restricted by weight. Therefore the Admiral Hipper Class ships were comparable with heavy Japanese cruisers and actually displaced more than the Deutschland Class pocket battleships. The Admiral Hipper Class cruisers carried eight main guns but did not have very strong armor protection. Contemporary British heavy cruisers mounted guns of comparable calibers, displaced less and yet had better armor protection. The Admiral Hipper Class disadvantages could partly be traced to the Kriegsmarine's lack of experience after World War I, and partly to the designers' intentions of constructing the class so that it resembled the Bismarck Class battleships. This scheme paid off during Operation Rheinübung when HMS Hood mistook KMS Prinz Eugen for KMS Bismarck.

KMS Admiral Hipper had a commendable war career despite continual engine problems. In the Norwegian campaign Admiral Hipper was rammed and damaged by the destroyer HMS Glowworm, which emerged from a smoke screen at close range but was ultimately sunk by Admiral Hipper.

Out of commission for a while, Admiral Hipper returned to sink twelve merchant ships in 1941. At the end of 1942, Admiral Hipper participated in the futile operation against the Russia bound convoy JW51B. Admiral Hipper subsequently served as a training ship in the Baltic Sea where she helped protect and evacuate the retreating German troops and refugees holed up in East Prussia in what became the largest maritime evacuation in history.

In 1945, Admiral Hipper sustained heavy bomb damage from RAF bombers and was scuttled in Kiel.