Just a comment on ICM/Revell 1/144 Type II UBoats. OOB they look like an attractive model - even better than Revell Type VII's. Railings are more in scale; 20 mm's are very well done; detail is crisp; fit is generally good, but the deck needs some shimming as it is a fraction of a mm narrower than the hull. The problems arise when you start doing homework for extra detailing. ICM has two kits both confusingly called "Type II B", but the first kit (with 2 types of small conning tower) can be built into a Type A, or C; the other kit (with lengthened conning tower for 2nd 20 mm ) is more like a B. However none of these combinations are correct. Looks like the ICM designers studied the drawings, smoked a huge doobie, and promptly forgot which details belonged where. None of the conning towers are 100% correct, as they have mixed details; and as for the lengthened "B" tower, I had to cut apart a small and the large tower and combine the two parts to make a (mostly) correct one. The surgery was a success, but I'm still in the process of making the cut line disappear. The hulls, while they do look nice, are all wrong for any Type II. Each succeeding model had an increased number of flood holes, but ICM got cheap and used the same molds for all the hull types - even the basic hull has missing holes. The conning tower interior needs detailing such as wooden slats on the insides, some instruments on the panel as well as some structural bracing.
There are a few other details that could use tweaking, but if you're not picky, the kit will build up into a nice model with just a little extra work.

For anyone interested (especially ICM), I was wrong about the two kits having the same hulls . The newer kit does have a second row of flood vents, but both hulls still have missing rows of holes. With the inclusion of a model C conning tower in the first kit, maybe a proper C hull will also be forthcomming.

Thanks for the insight into the new kits Biggs! Certainly sounds promising for fans of these U-boats!