1:20 scale model of Pocket Battleship Graf Spee

This guy has put a lot of work into his creation:


It's 30 feet long, and so it's longer than I'd want to trailer, but is powered by an outboard (cunningly hidden under the stern turret).

The real ship - not to mention her captain, Langsdorff - was pretty interesting. Limited by treaty restrictions on tonnage, the ship used two innovations to save weight. First, the hull plates were arc welded together, rather than the usual overlapping-and-riveted plate arrangement. This saved a lot of weight, although I'd think somewhat at the cost of armor strength. Second, instead of the typical nautical steam power plant, it used diesel engines. By eliminating boilers and the attendant water, condensers, and piping, they saved another huge amount of weight.

But this second came at the cost of introducing a terrible single point of failure. Most diesel fuel is pretty dirty, and requires "scrubbing" before being fed to the engines (modern long range diesel powered pleasure trawlers like Nordhavn will usually come fitted with fuel "polishers" to do this). The Graf Spee used a boiler to produce steam to clean diesel fuel from the main bunkers which was then stored in a "Day Tank", but there was only one of these systems.

Murphy's Law was in play back in 1939, and a shell from the H.M.S. Exeter blew the fuel polishing system to Kingdom Come. With only 18 hours of clean fuel, the Spee made a run for the neutral port of Montevideo, where she was scuttled within the week.

Captain Langsdorff is also pretty interesting. Not only did he go out of his way to (successfully) avoid killing any crew from the eight merchant ships he destroyed, he treated the captured crew with respect, and earned the friendship of several of the captured captains. He was the only officer at the funeral for the Graf Spee's dead that used the Navy salute (rather than the Nazi salute). And when he shot himself, he wrapped himself in the battle flag of his old ship. Quite a man.