SMS Großer Kurfürst was a König Class battleship of the German Imperial Navy (Kaiserliche Marine) during the First World War.

Großer Kurfürst was built by Vulcan, Hamburg. She was laid down in October 1911, launched in May 1913 and commissioned in July 1914.

She took part in the Battle of Jutland, where she was damaged by 5 heavy caliber hits, with 15 dead and 10 wounded. She was torpedoed by the submarine HMS J1 on 5 November 1916, yet survived the war.

Großer Kurfürst was part of the great scuttling of the German High Seas Fleet at Scapa Flow, sinking on 21 June 1919 at 13:30 pm. She was salvaged in April 1933 and scrapped at Rosyth, Scotland. Part of the ship (the mast) is still divable in 33 m of water in the water of Scapa Flow.

The ship was the second to be named after Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg, known as the Great Elector (in German Großer Kurfürst ). The German Imperial Navy had an earlier capital ship by the same name, the armored ship SMS Großer Kurfürst.

Molded in white plastic, as are most ICM kits, this one comes in a rather large box, which gives the kit parts a lot of room to slide around. The majority of the sprues are in three large and one small bag. The parts themselves are very nicely molded. I looked long and hard for the usual problem areas of sink areas, ejector pin marks and flash. I was quite pleased to not find anything of consequence aside from some very deep sink areas on the prop shaft housings. Some of the parts are very finely done and thanks to the sprues being several to a bag, some of these bits had either broken off or had been bent to where straightening them will result in their snapping. The detail level is quite good and you'll find the usual rivets and the myriad of stanchions, ladders, davits, guns, and various naval accoutrements that one normally finds on ships.

The main superstructure is quite complex for a ship of this era and careful construction will be needed to keep things in place. This is especially true of the various mast work and cranes. It is for these constructs that you'll find the finest of parts and the need to do the most repair if your kit has been roughly handled before it got to you. If you don't have a small set of hand drills, I highly recommend getting one to drill out the gun barrels. Both the main and secondary armament are of such a size that doing this will surely enhance the look.

It seems from the instructions that each one of the three kits in the series is basically identical in terms of the sprues in the box. Some parts are shown as not used on different variants and this is to be expected as few major ships are exactly the same. Instructions are superbly done with all the needed modifications clearly shown. All the parts are listed in both Russian and English where needed. Color information is supplied in both Model Master and generic terms. An overall painting diagram is provided in the center of the instruction booklet. I did notice that the waterline is visible on the hull part to aid in painting as this is usually quite difficult. Though the basic color of the ship is shown as Light Ghost Grey, there are enough additional bits and pieces of different colors to keep from the ship looking a boring monotone. A small decal sheet provides basically your flags and a few smaller bits.