Hello and Happy Christmas to everyone. I have0been around on Armorama and Aeroscale for a while as Im mostly a plane and armour guy, but recently I found a new interest in ships and subs. Aside from one or two 1/700 attempts from when I was a kid I never did a serious built of a ship not to mention a sub. So I decided to give it a try and picked up two kits in 1/350, the Gato from AFV and to have somehting less common the Shchuka Class SHCH-303 kit from AMP. I started with the Shchuka. I never heard of the manufacturer before. The kit has a short run feel to it. The details are not that great. I also didnt check the overall dimesions, I hope the russian manufaturer did his job properly. Being a russian short run kit, I expected a tough ride. I started Yesterday and spent most of the time with putty in one hand and the sandpaper in the other. Most of the details on the deck were ofcourse lost and I must recreate them later when the hull is finished.

I built this kit about a year or so back, while not up to the standards of the major manufacturers, it is a nice little kit and fun build. References are fairly scare as well. Word of caution though, the PE in the kit is really fragile.

Looking forward to seeing your progress.

Hello Rob, Thank You for the comment and the word of advise on the PE. Unfortunatelly the PE is realy the week point of the kit and I used only the anchor, propellers and the three rigging contructions. After four or six layers of surfacer and hours of sanding Im finally happy with the shape of the hull. Nearly all the details on the deck were lost so I had to replace them. I hope to make more progress today.

Ok so I managed to finish the basic contruction and the Shchuka is ready for paint. The deck gun in the kit was represented only as a PE so I made a new one. I will leave of the railings on this one.

I managed to finish the Shchuka before the New Year but I had no time to take more pictures, so here she is. I found a few pictures of whitewashed Shchuka class subs in soviet ports during the war and wanted to try the white camo. I guess it was used only when the sub was in the port to conceal it in a case of an air raid.