This is the RTR 1/350 Bismarck produced by "HT" who also make the RTR destroyer, aircraft carrier and torpedo boat often seen on eBay. I bought mine for £20 + postage from Howes on eBay.



The model scales out at exactly 1/350 (the box says "1/360", for once they've underestimated the scale), the hull is about 71.5cm long and 11cm wide amidships. As with the other HT RTR boats, it has twin-prop propulsion and steering, the boat can be steered "tank-style" by running the props in opposite directions. I haven't tested it on the water yet, but from my experience with the "Smasher" destroyer, it will need new props, a lower battery power or a proper speed control to run at a decent scale speed - the Smasher runs like a speedboat in out of the box configuration!



The entire superstructure lifts off to reveal the battery compartment (also with a removable cover) containing a 7.5v rechargeable pack. (I forgot to take a photo of this, but it's a fairly straightforward arrangement) Unlike the Smasher, there is no on/off switch, so you need to take the battery out when you've finished running. There's a blue LED on the forward deck which lights up when the battery is connected. As with the other HT boats, it has a safety feature to prevent the props rotating when out of water, this model also has a "test button" on the aft deck consisting of a couple of small electrical contacts which you touch to complete the circuit. It doesn't work on my model, but you can test the props out of the water by touching a piece of wire to each prop shaft (The "safety feature" is easy to remove anyway with a bit of re-wiring once you've taken the boat apart)


The model has a good amount of detail, presumably copied from the Tamiya 1/350 kit. The main, secondary and AA turrets are all basically accurate in shape and the superstructure is also fairly good. The main superstructure is much too high though, and not as wide amidships as it should be, and most significantly the model is disfigured by 6 huge ugly clips which hold the superstructure in place, these are almost as big as the secondary turrets! Even if you don't want to make any other modifications to the model, replacing these with small magnets or pegs will improve the appearance a lot.

The hull's deck profile is quite accurate for Bismarck, as is the "clipper" bow form and the general shape above the waterline, but the hull is significantly deeper than the real ship, and also has larger bilge keels, with fins, for added stability, along with a bulbous bow (see comparison photo no.2 below) - none of this will be visible when the model is running, though.



Fittings and smaller parts are a mixed bag, some are passable, others distinctly crude. What's really funny is that HT have re-used some of the parts from their other models, particularly the aircraft carrier (which is also 1/350 scale) so you have modern Soviet/Russian armament on a WW2 German battleship! A pair of "Sunburn" anti-ship missile launchers sit on the aircraft deck amidships, the light AA is a mixture of saluting guns and AK-130 30mm CIWS turrets, and the aft mast is taken from the 1/200 destroyer. I'm sure the real Bismarck's crew would have been grateful for these additions - those AK-130s would have made short work of the Royal Navy's Swordfish!
The AA guns are an obvious attempt at cutting costs by re-using parts, but I don't know what the manufacturers were thinking putting SSM launchers on the aircraft deck. At least they didn't put a Ka-27 helicopter there...
Finally, here are some photos comparing the model to a plastic kit. This is a Tirpitz I built several years ago, my first abortive attempt at building a 1/350 plastic kit (which taught me, the hard way, to paint the superstructure + decks before you glue the small fittings and details in place), though it's badly built, and missing some parts, it gives an idea of how the RTR model compares to an actual scale model of a Bismarck-class ship.
The RTR boat appears to have a narrower hull than the kit, but this is an illusion caused by the deeper hull, taller superstructure + the fact that the superstructure deck isn't as wide as it should be; the hulls are near-identical in size and dimensions.







Out of the box, this is a fun model, and would be a great starter R/C boat for kids, but (unlike the destroyer, carrier and torpedo boat) isn't a very good scale model of its subject and will look rather odd even with a repaint and the removal of the superstructure clips.
It wouldn't be too hard to rework + rebuild the superstructure and fittings to make them more accurate, but a much easier option would be to buy a Tamiya/Academy/Minihobby 1/350 Bismarck plastic kit - these can be found very cheap now that the far superior Revell kit is out - and combine the superstructure, turrets + details of this with the hull of the RTR boat. This will give you all the small details - boats, light AA, searchlights, deck fittings etc. - as well as an accurate and detailed superstructure, and will allow you to build a detailed and basically accurate 1/350 R/C Bismarck (or Tirpitz) for around £50 total. This is what I'm planning to do (using my old Tirpitz model shown above, rather than a new kit).