Ahoy Shipmates,
Although 1:350 is not my scale, I have acquired most all of the recently
released u -boats in this scale. Dragon, AFV, Bronco and Flagman have done
a great job with the details and are quite accurate in this small scale.
They will look great once built and displayed side by side.

Having heard of the HobbyBoss release of the Type VII A, my excitement
grew as we were finally to have a model of the elusive Type VIIA u boat.
So off I went to the LHS and picked one up.
Upon opening the box and at first glance, noticed a finely detailed little sub.
But then once I inspected the sprues and parts.........OUCH!

DISAPPOINTMENT!

HB has brought to us a generic mishmash of types.

First of all what you will find in the box is a sprue that is clearly stamped
"7 B/C" and in fact the parts will build up into a Type VII B only.
They include 2 conning towers, an early and a later war with wintergarten.
The early version can be used for the Type VII A but it requires some
modifications.

They went to the trouble of representing the above deck stern torpedo tube
but never closed off the below the waterline one....go figure.

The deck itself is distinctly that of a Type VIIB or even VIIC.

Details like the emergency rescue buoys (2) are missing.

The shape of the deck casing is somewhat wrong.

They have represented the air vents as a cross between an A and a B/C.

And worst of all this sub comes with a double rudder when the Type A had
a single rudder!

The assembly instructions and paint scheme profiles are labeled Type VIIA
but the subs are distinctly Type VII Bs.

They actually got one thing right though, the sub measures up at 64.5 meters so when displaced next to an AFV Type B, it will actually look shorter but the
saddle tanks will still be too large.
(AFV's Type VII B measures up at the correct 66.5 meters in length.

Included is some great looking photo etch detail and stand and very fine
waterslide decals for the 10 Type VII A u boats build.

Overall the sub can be made up to represent a Type VII A but a lot of corrections are required.

So there you have it, don't expect an out of the box build on this one,
to correctly represent the type VII-A uboat.

Cheers,
Joe

Hi Joe, welcome back, mate, 'tis nice to see you in our waters once again!

Thanks for your report on the HB Type VIIA, my friend, this will be a fair warning to all that will be building the kit, and the downfalls/corrections to be expected...hope to see more of you in the future!

Cheers,
~Gunny

Ahoy Mark,
Thanks for the welcome!

I noticed that a campaign "Stand by torpedoes" is about to start.
I think I will join and build this little guy with as many corrections
as possible, in this little scale.
I will use alot of the reference material I was able to gather
on the Type VIIAs as I have resumed my U35 conversion in 1:125.
Should be an interesting build and will give me the opportunity
to share info with the others.
Have a great day,


Joe

thanks for the info, that will sav e me a from getting this one for the collection

Hi Steve,
The model is well molded and has very fine detail but unless
someone else releases an accurate model of this uboat,
The HB is all we have for now.
As I said, it is possible to convert, with a little work, I will be doing this for
an upcoming build and will share the info that I have gathered.
What ticked me off was that HB did very little to gives us an accurate
model and basically reboxed a B/C lower hull with a B/C ... / A generic
upper hull.
This was maybe acceptable 25 years ago but not in 2010.
Anyways, I am sure the conversion will be fun!
Cheers,
Joe