The Ship Model Forum

I've had this mostly finished on my workbench for a year and decided I needed to finish it. Kitbashed from a Hobby Boss Gato kit for the hull and a U-Boat Bridge with a lots of styrene and spare PE railing. The deck was sanded clean and completely rescribed.

Except for the base hull everything below the waterline is scratchbuilt.

What was the color of the lower hull of this sub? For my references it looks a VERY dark green, almost black in color. Can any one confirm?

Her spacious gun platform reminds me of Kaisers boat! great half scratchbuilding project!

AFAIK, RM subs had the lower hull painted in the standard antifouling green. The upper part of the saddle tanks, down to the waterline, was painted dark grey. There was also a dark grey boot top.

If you have a very steady hand, you can try to add the conning tower emblem, the score...



... and the unofficial motto, "Ocio che meno" (translating as "Be warned, I'm gonna bash you")



Before to paint the hull, I humbly suggest you trim the rudder, it seems to be a bit oversized



Hope this helps

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Thanks Secondo. I'm going to try and slim up the rudder and also try and remove it and move it back a bit. I've been using this site for reference:

http://www.betasom.it/forum/index.php?showtopic=31958

Which I think you gave me a while ago.

On the Anti-Fouling green can you post a color swatch of it? I've looked it up and it appears to be a forest green in hue from what I've found.

Always glad to help someone working on a RM ship

The rudder doesn't seem to be in the wrong position, so there may be no need to remove it; once resized, it should be fine.

Here's Lifecolor's paint chip for the antifouling green (code UA 617, named "Verde scuro antivegetativo")

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Rudders fixed. I did move them farther back and like it better. A shot of the bow is included as well.

So another question, what were the colors of the RM sailors uniforms? It looks like it might have been a dark brown from the BW photos. Going to put a few on the deck possibly.

The standard uniforms were dark blue; officers and lookouts were provided with leather coats for rough weather. As it was common in many Navies, submariners' dress code became more informal as the war went on. You can get an idea of their uniforms watching the wartime movie "Alfa Tau", which is an useful document for us as it was meant to faithfully represent the submariners' life (no wonder - it was directed by Francesco De Robertis)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtnD34EOjLA

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Nice work.

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K494 HMCS Arnprior
Royal Canadian Navy

The finished product with photos submitted to the gallery.

I also need to clarify that this was a Hobby Boss Balao hull not a Gato.

Great job AJ!!!



Bob Pink.