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U-201, "Coming Home", August 1942

MSW crew-mate Jan Klarbæk (MrMox) shares a fine article of his build of Revell Models 1/72 scale VII C submarine kit, built as U-201, in this MSW Feature!

This is the rather old Revell1:72 type VII C submarine in its early incarnation with deck-gun and without the snorkel. Its built up as U-201.

The U-201 returned from its 7th patrol on August the 8th ´42, having sunk 6 ships - it was the last patrol with Adelbert Schnee as captain. It allowed me to do the boat as it looked returning to Brest with the double snowman emblem, victory pennants and a lined up crew on the deck - and a heavy weathering after a long patrol around Freetown and in the Atlantic.

I have had this kit laying around the last 2 years, without really getting anything done. My prime concern was, how to display the boat - initially I planned on showing it full hull, but making a scene with a full hull boat is somewhat static unless fitted into a dock - so I ended up cutting the hull down to waterline.

Aside from cutting the hull to pieces, I used among other things, the Modelbrass etch set that contains a beautiful brass deck, the White Ensign update set for flood, drain and vent holes, the CMK update set for the guns and turret and a pressure hull scratch-build in sheet styrene.

The pressure-hull is needed when you build the boat with open flood-holes and deck, but only as a representation of the p-hull, as not much is visible trough the small and badly lit flood-holes. The trick is to stop before getting carried away in detailing something that never will be seen again.

As I have put in a new deck in the conning tower, I also had to scratch the conning tower as it will be visible from above...laziness got the better of me, so I didn't show the hatch open!

Water is a mix of methods inspired by Tailor's (Guido Hopp) builds - sea is relatively calm with "lazy" waves build up with styro-pour and plaster - on top is wrinkled aluminum foil to depict the smaller waves within the bigger waves, and to finish it off after painting, it got a layer of acrylic gel to add some depth and to seal the boat to the surrounding sea. Painting of the sea was done with artist oils.

The boat is painted with a mix of different acrylics - Lifecolor, Vallejo and Tamiya, Figures are mostly painted with Humbrol. Weathering is done with oils.