Thanks Graeme for posting the German issues. Very handy. I now have a clear indicator of what to expect over the next few months.

One thing of note that goes out to everyone building this boat and that is to dry-fit all the parts for the control room and engine room rather than wait until issue 148 of the part-works. I found that I had to bring the Dremel into action as the plastic parts supplied wouldn't quite sit square or line up with one another . Better to try the fit now than have to do all that work once everything is almost finished. Especially when the hull has been painted and you think you're on the home run. Regards, Phil W.

Hello Fellow Modellers,

More pictures to come soon of the build earlier in the year while I play 'catch-up' so that I get to the point where this build is recorded in real time.

One thing of note and that is at this moment I'm dry-fitting parts for the Control Room and the Engine Room. The part-works states to "put these parts in a safe place for later", well, looking forward in time via the German issues, that .."for later" doesn't happen until issue 148, only two issues away from the end! I would strongly advise not to wait until then as I had to break out the Dremel and remove quite a lot of plastic so that all sections would fit together neatly and in-line within the boat.

The German part works pictures make the fitting of the Control Room and Engine Room as whole sections look so easy, but in fact all of our builds vary slightly dimensionally. A fair bit of head-scratching, pondering and several evenings work followed before I was happy that everything lined up.

Take care everyone and speak soon. Regards Phil W.

If you are building the U96 do NOT ignore this advice. Almost every builder so far had to redo the cutout and there's not a lot of room to operate without endangering the rest of the build.

Good to see you progressing well and some sound advise included.

Congrats on your blue medal for running your diary.

Regards
delboy271155
(Derek)

I'm pretty sure the Hachette U-96 is largely influenced by the U-96 in "Das Boot" which features the net saw for "it looks good in a movie" reasons

Great job Phil has for the net cutter i would leave it cause it could have between refits? so you`ve got a bit of a licence there, i would say i`m going to leave it on mine Regards Phil

Thanks guys for the comments and compliments. Very encouraging and inspiring!

Well after much thought and a lot of research I've decided to model my U-boat on U230 and not U96.

Here goes for the lengthy explanation as to why I chose U230.....

It all started from the fact that the U-boats were fitted with wooden decks; the reasons are two-fold, it was safer to walk on by the sailors during icy conditions as opposed to steel which would of been fatal, especially when loading stores at sea and it was cheaper to manufacture and replace if damaged occurred.

The wooden decks were painted with a black tar mixture for two reasons:1] It helped preserve the wood and 2]It concealed the deck from being spotted by enemy aircraft especially when dived at periscope depth.

I wanted to replicate this deck with real mahogany [which was also used on the real thing] rather than use etched brass.

After reading through "U-Boat Modifications" by Dougie Martindale [you can download a pdf off the internet], which is also very thorough and I highly recommend, I discovered that earlier type VIIC's such as U96 were fitted with slotted wooden decking, as reproduced with the brass photo-etch from Hachette. Looking at images of U995 [at Lahoe], this boat had 'planking'. The latter style is what I really wanted to fit as it would look ace done in mahogany strips, whereas the slots would prove to be very tricky to pull off.

That is were my quandary lay; authenticity over modellers license. As an ex-submariner who happens to be a stickler for detail I decided to build this model as accurately as I possibly could. So, mahogany planking then instead of brass etch slots for the wooden deck.

However, the wooden planking wasn't fitted on U-Boats until the summer / autumn of 1942. From then on all boats had wooden planks fitted. Earlier boats did not have the planks retrospectively fitted but kept their wooden slotted decks.

So from a deck perspective, if I was to stay true and fit mahogany planking I was looking at a U-Boat that was launched in the summer / autumn of 1942 or after.

Looking at the hull, the part-works is modelled with the breakwaters removed. These breakwaters were ridges that stopped the sea water from drenching the guys operating the 88m flak gun on the casing, or worse case scenario, washing them overboard. In spring 1941 the admiralty ordered that these were removed and replaced with free-flood holes as per the Hachette model. U96 was originally fitted with these breakwaters but then had them removed in about April 1941. So the U96 per Hachette, theoretically is post-spring 1941. From a modelling point of view - fine. All submarines were converted to this new design by the end of 1941 and any new builds [1942 onwards] had them built from the start.

Net-cutters were introduced in WW1 and fitted onto boats in WW2 including early type VIIC's as per U96 and part-works. They were phased out in the early part of 1941, but not all at the same time. So some boats including U96, for a short time, had both the modified breakwaters and the net-cutter. Gradually all net-cutters were removed from the boats by Winter 1941.

Wind deflectors were fitted to the top of the conning tower in 1941 on new builds and retrospectively on earlier types including U96.

I hope I haven't bored anyone yet with my ramblings?

So, to summarise so far and for me to build a U-Boat to the correct specification it had to have been built post 1942 without breakwaters or net-cutters, conning tower wind deflectors fitted and wooden planking on the deck......

With 700 or so U-Boats built in many different dockyards I chose to find a boat that was built at Kiel; the same place as U96. A total of 58 Type VIIC's were built here between 1940 and 1943. I checked everyone by date to narrow it down to the specifications I was looking for and ended up with a short list of 19. I then decided to check what emblems each of these had and what flotilla they belonged to, seven of which were unknown, leaving 12 possible options. Looking at the emblems I jumped for joy when I discovered that U230, which matched my specifications was part of the 9th Flotilla, the same as U96 and also sported the 'laughing swordfish' emblem. Ace! It means I can use the supplied decals from the part-works and still be true to the original.

U230 also has 'history' too which is an added bonus. After reading about it on Wiki, the First Officer on U230 during her first three war patrols was Herbert Werner who later went on to write about his experiences as a post-war memoir titled 'Iron Coffins' which you can still buy today! Amazing!

So, in conclusion, U230 it's going to be. Thank you for reading [if you didn't fall asleep half-way through], but once I got on a mission I was like Sherlock Holmes' bloodhound!

Kind Regards,
Phil.

Hi Phil you`ve really researched this i will be whatching with interest especially for when i restart my build Regards Phil

These images show the profile of the starboard saddle tank with 'scalloped' cut-outs.

Regards, Phil W

Hi Phil.
Looking very good. look forward to the next update.
Ian