"During the FIRST WORLD WAR – two of the Imperial German Navy's "light cruisers", SMS Dresden and SMS Emden waged a trade war against British ships far from home. The Dresden initially operated off the East Coast of South America and the Emden in the Indian Ocean. In order to avoid British Warships the Dresden made its way into the Pacific to join the German East Asia Squadron. In the first naval battle of the First World War, a Royal Navy Squadron was able to narrowly avoid defeat in an action in which two British Warships were sunk. The subsequent attack on Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands failed however and all the German ships except the Dresden were lost. Crippled the Dresden hid in bays around the South of Chile until 14 March 1915 when she was discovered by three British warships and fired upon. The Captain decided to scuttle his ship.
The Emden however, cleverly avoided enemy contact and was thus able to destroy the Oil Storage Unit at Madras. During later actions, two small British cruisers and many merchant ships also fell victim to the Emden. The Emden was however, rendered unfit for action whilst under fire from the Australian cruiser Sydney on its way to the Coco Islands (early in November 1914). The captain was forced to run his ship aground in order to prevent her sinking. Later as a special commendation, all surviving crew members were permitted to bear the additional title "Emden".
Originally released on their own, the SMS Emden in 1994 and the Dresden in 1996, both were well regarded kits at the time. Since their original release they have been re-popped a couple of times, but this is the first time that they have been released together in a kind of box set. Inside the deep end opening and rather feeble box you find two poly bags each with a complete kit inside. There is no other protection for the parts but they don't seem to have suffered any damage, just a few parts have come adrift from the sprues. The 4 sprues, two hull halves and separate main deck part of rather odd greeny grey styrene appear to have been well moulded, with no sign of flash, but with quite a few moulding, (overrun), pips on the smaller parts. Detail is nicely done with some very fine engraved plate lines and open portholes, which could need some backing to avoid see through issues. The wooden decks though are a little disappointing in that they seem way out of scale, with the grain looking something more akin to the wooden dashboards you find in some cars, so probably best to get a nice real wood deck from the likes of Artwox or Pontos. The rest of the parts look good and even the gun barrels are nice and slim, but you could always change them for brass items should you wish. Apart from the lower rear hull around the props there isn't any discernible difference between the kits, so if you were to waterline the hulls, the parts used would be exactly the same. If displaying them in full hull configuration then you would notice that the Dresden has four screws whilst the Emden only has two…."
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