That analysis was enlightening! Thanks for doing that. You talked me out of the Airfix kit, basically. The new
Schnellboot in Action book is a fantastic resource, and well worth buying the same book again (I own the previous edition). I feel a lot better about painting the bottom of the boat Schiffenbodenfarbe red rather than grey, for one thing. Those color photos are a fantastic find.
I'm about to embark on building my S-100 class boat from the Revell Kit. It'll be about my 3rd model since returning to building models as an adult (I'd stopped in secondary school when I became far more interested in girls and beer). It's going to be R/C, but I'd like to use the full Griffon PE set, so keeping it light enough to float might get... interesting.
I'm most likely going to build the S-150, which if I'm not mistaken, was 9th Flotilla commander von Mirbach's boat when the 5th and 9th flotillas attacked the D-Day landing practice exercises at Slapton Sands and sunk about 3 LSTs, leading to a massive US government coverup.
First difficulty here is that while I've found a lot of after market decal sets I've not seen one for the 9th flotilla's insignia. Jean-Philippe Dallies-Labourdette, in his
S-Boote: German E-Boats in Action incorrectly identifies the insignia as the 8th flotilla. I believe it's been mentioned earlier in this threat that this book has factual inaccuracies; so there's one. Also, the art in the book depicts e-boats as heavily weathered as Flower-class corvettes. I've read somewhere that they were meticulously maintained and the paint was kept relatively fresh. Photos bear this claim out, so I'd be hesitant to rust it up. That said, the book has a lot of photos and is a good read for those who want to get a feel for operations and tactics, so I don't regret having it.
Before I start building, I'm waiting on Harald Fock's
Die Deutschen Schnellboote 1914-1945, and will probably get his
Fast Fighting Boats as well, unless someone convinces me that they're so redundant one doesn't need both.
There are a couple more projects queued up, but I'll be building a 1/72 semi-scratch s-38 class boat on a Coastal Forces hull at some point, so I want to amass a lot of research material (that, and I'm the sort of person who spends $400 on research material to build a $20 kit). Most likely I'll build the s-130. Only problem with this plan is it would give me two 9th flotilla boats, so if anyone knows of another boat of either class that was involved in one or more remarkable actions, please post a mention of it (I like my models to have backstory).
On the other hand, if they're both R/C, it might be cool to be able to send a 'swarm' of two s-boots out to chase the monitor lizards that swim in the pond near my house...
[quote="Dakra"]I took apart the Airfix "German E-Boat" to see why it doesn't look right; it was an itch I had to scratch.
http://prinzeugen.com/AirfixSchnellboot.htm[/quote]
That analysis was enlightening! Thanks for doing that. You talked me out of the Airfix kit, basically. The new [i]Schnellboot in Action [/i]book is a fantastic resource, and well worth buying the same book again (I own the previous edition). I feel a lot better about painting the bottom of the boat Schiffenbodenfarbe red rather than grey, for one thing. Those color photos are a fantastic find.
I'm about to embark on building my S-100 class boat from the Revell Kit. It'll be about my 3rd model since returning to building models as an adult (I'd stopped in secondary school when I became far more interested in girls and beer). It's going to be R/C, but I'd like to use the full Griffon PE set, so keeping it light enough to float might get... interesting.
I'm most likely going to build the S-150, which if I'm not mistaken, was 9th Flotilla commander von Mirbach's boat when the 5th and 9th flotillas attacked the D-Day landing practice exercises at Slapton Sands and sunk about 3 LSTs, leading to a massive US government coverup.
First difficulty here is that while I've found a lot of after market decal sets I've not seen one for the 9th flotilla's insignia. Jean-Philippe Dallies-Labourdette, in his [i]S-Boote: German E-Boats in Action[/i] incorrectly identifies the insignia as the 8th flotilla. I believe it's been mentioned earlier in this threat that this book has factual inaccuracies; so there's one. Also, the art in the book depicts e-boats as heavily weathered as Flower-class corvettes. I've read somewhere that they were meticulously maintained and the paint was kept relatively fresh. Photos bear this claim out, so I'd be hesitant to rust it up. That said, the book has a lot of photos and is a good read for those who want to get a feel for operations and tactics, so I don't regret having it.
Before I start building, I'm waiting on Harald Fock's [i]Die Deutschen Schnellboote 1914-1945[/i], and will probably get his [i]Fast Fighting Boats[/i] as well, unless someone convinces me that they're so redundant one doesn't need both.
There are a couple more projects queued up, but I'll be building a 1/72 semi-scratch s-38 class boat on a Coastal Forces hull at some point, so I want to amass a lot of research material (that, and I'm the sort of person who spends $400 on research material to build a $20 kit). Most likely I'll build the s-130. Only problem with this plan is it would give me two 9th flotilla boats, so if anyone knows of another boat of either class that was involved in one or more remarkable actions, please post a mention of it (I like my models to have backstory).
On the other hand, if they're both R/C, it might be cool to be able to send a 'swarm' of two s-boots out to chase the monitor lizards that swim in the pond near my house...