At the height of its powers, it was the most powerful waterborne weapons system ever built.
So when Warwick Riddle made the decision to end his 25-year model-making passion with one final, impressive project, a huge scale model of the German World War II dreadnought, the Bismarck, was his logical choice.
But there was just one curious, historical hitch.
By their nature, model-makers are fastidious in their attention to historical accuracy, using thinner-than-hair wire ropework and pinpoint brushstrokes.
And the retired Telstra technician is no different. Every tiny stanchion, every handrail, every porthole had to be granular perfect.
However, this time he decided on a couple of notable exclusions: deliberately left off Mr Riddle's Bismarck were the huge white Nazi swastika symbols which were splashed prominently across the fore and aft decks of the seagoing original, at the demand of Adolf Hitler who gave a rousing speech at the vessel's christening in 1941.
"I exercised my model-maker's discretion and left those awful original Nazi symbols off," Mr Riddle said.
"They added nothing to the overall look of the project.
"And I think even as a model maker you have to be sensitive to people's views. After all, there were a lot of people killed by this ship during the war."
HMS Hood, once the pride of the British Navy, was sunk by the newer, massively powerful and heavily armoured Bismarck during the Battle of the Denmark Strait in May 1941.
When the Hood's ammunition store exploded under a barrage from the Bismarck's enormous 15-inch turret guns, the biggest battlecruiser of the British fleet sank within three minutes.
Only three members of the Hood's 1418 crew survived.
Three and a half years in its construction, Warwick Riddle's Bismarck will make its first public appearance at the annual Canberra Model Shipwrights Society's annual expo on September 14-15 at the Mt Rogers Primary School in Melba.
And if there's any nervousness about the upcoming unveiling and exposing his project to the intense scrutiny of his eagle-eyed peers in the modelmaking world, Mr Riddle hid it well.
"There's always going to be someone who will pick out a tiny detail," he said.
"That's the nature of what we do."
And as a model-maker, Mr Riddle's Scullin mancave is more like that of a microsurgeon.
His workbench is carefully organised with scalpels, more tweezers than a nail salon, surgeon-like picks, needle-like brushes and cup-sized plastic slide drawers labelled with tiny left-over parts from previous projects.
On the shelf at the back of the workshop are completed models of a German U-boat and perhaps the most unique of Australia's wartime vessels, the wooden hulled MV Krait, a fishing vessel used by special forces to sneak in and blow up seven Japanese warships inside Singapore Harbour in 1943.
Among Canberra's modelmaking fraternity, getting locked down at home during the Covid pandemic was just another excuse to spend more time in the garage with the tweezers and tack hammer.
And while Mr Riddle says the Bismarck was his final project, there were black and white photos on his bench which suggested otherwise.
"Oh, those photos are of the AE2, Australia's first and most famous submarine," he said.
"Now that would make a marvellous model."
