COBI HMS Hood Set 4830

COBI's HMS Hood is a 1:300 model built from 2,613 blocks, 88 cm long and 22 cm high on its stand. The deck guns move, the main turrets rotate, the rudders and propellers turn, and the camouflage and fittings are printed onto the blocks. A display stand with the ship's name is included.

Battleship guns on cruiser armour

The Hood was a battlecruiser, and the word describes a compromise rather than a size. She carried eight 15-inch guns, the same as a battleship, and she was fast — but the speed was bought by leaving off armour that a battleship would have had, particularly on the decks.

The Royal Navy already knew the risk. At Jutland in 1916 three British battlecruisers had blown up under plunging fire that came down through their deck armour into the magazines. Hood was designed before that battle and modified afterwards, but never rebuilt as thoroughly as she needed to be, because between the wars she was too useful as a showpiece to take out of service for years. For two decades she was the largest warship in the world and the most photographed ship in the Royal Navy.

Eight minutes

On 24 May 1941 she met the Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen in the Denmark Strait. The action lasted a few minutes. A German salvo at long range fell steeply onto her, something reached a magazine, and the ship broke apart in an explosion visible for miles.

Of 1,418 men aboard, three survived. Britain's loss of the Hood is the reason the Royal Navy pursued the Bismarck across the Atlantic with everything it had.

Specifications

Pieces: 2,613 · Scale: 1:300 · Display stand and nameplate included
Model dimensions: 88 × 22 cm with stand (34.6 × 8.7 in)