Calling all Kriegsmarine U-boat Type II fans

[Chaz]

Does antone know of any Type II boat Kits available? Or what kits can be used to scratchbuild one in 1/350?
Chaz

[Filipe Ramires]

Mirage used to have Type II's at 1/400 scale including the IIB's. ICM has one Type IIB at 1/144 scale. All plastic.

[Chaz]

Filipe,
Thanks for the reply, i'm interested in locating a 1/350 kit. It seems there were a couple of kits made a while back but no luck finding any available.
Chaz

[biggles2]

While ICM and Revell's reboxed Type II UBoats can build up into nice models OOB, they do contain many errors. The ICM moldings are better than Revell's Type VII's with finer handrails, and MUCH better 20 mm's, and have overall crisp molding and generally good fit (although the deck needs some shimming as it's a fraction of a mm narrower than the hull. However, problems arise when doing your homework for extra detail. That's when you find multiple annoying errors. It looks like ICM designers studied their drawings and plans, then smoked a huge doobie, and promptly forgot which details belong where! ICM have released two kits both confusingly called "Type II B". Both kits contain two variations of conning towers, so you could actually build a Type II A; B; or C... almost. Unfortunately, the details of the conning towers are mixed and confused, so that none of them are 100% correct. I'm currently building the Type II B (with lengthened tower for 2nd 20 mm Flak), but I had to cut apart towers from both kits and glue them together to make one correct tower. I'm in the process of making the cut line disappear.
As for the hulls, they look good, but also contain errors. Each succeeding Type II U Boat model had an increased number of flood vents so that neither of them are actually correct, as even the basic hull has insufficient holes. As the first kit contains what looks like a model C conning tower, maybe a C hull will also be forthcoming.
If you're not picky, either of the kits can be built into a nice model OOB, with just a bit of extra work.

[biggles2]

Here's ICM's Type II A, OOB. Although I did add the smallest size crimping beads for insulators, but they look a little big for 1/144. I tried drilling out the rows of omitted flood vents, but a couple were off-center and made the whole row look awful, so I puttied them up again.

[Maarten Sch�nfeld]

Or what kits can be used to scratchbuild one in 1/350?

Hi Chaz, this remark is a contradiction in itself! When you scratchbuild one you don't need any kit at all!

But giving you a start of an answer: if I have an intention to 'scratch build' a master myself of a Type II boat: which sub call would you prefer to see? I have plans of the IIA, IIC and IID variants. The objective is to get to a representative Type II boat in 1:350 scale.

First I have to finish a few others: the Type XIV and the Type X...

One more note: on all the above the 1/72 kit of Special Navy should be mentioned too...
http://modelshipwrights.kitmaker.net/mo ... 883&page=1

[krgf15]

Or what kits can be used to scratchbuild one in 1/350?

Hi Chaz, this remark is a contradiction in itself! When you scratchbuild one you don't need any kit at all!

But giving you a start of an answer: if I have an intention to 'scratch build' a master myself of a Type II boat: which sub call would you prefer to see? I have plans of the IIA, IIC and IID variants. The objective is to get to a representative Type II boat in 1:350 scale.

First I have to finish a few others: the Type XIV and the Type X...

XIV reduced.jpg

One more note: on all the above the 1/72 kit of Special Navy should be mentioned too...
http://modelshipwrights.kitmaker.net/mo ... 883&page=1

How are your scratch build 1/350 u boats coming?