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Mirage Hobby Kit Number 40023, 40024, 40025, 40026 1/400 Type II U-boats |
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Reviewed By Tim Reynaga, #26391 |
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U-2 (Type IIa) $6.98 USD U-23 (Type IIb) $6.98 USD U-60 (Type IIc) $6.98 USD U-149 (Type IId) $6.98 USD Nicknamed Einbaume, or “dugout canoes” because of their small size, the Type II coastal U-Boats served the German navy faithfully from the early 1930s through the end of World War II. As second-rate combat subs and training boats, the humble Type II U-Boats were moderately successful, but they were always overshadowed by their larger, more famous brethren. They have also been largely ignored by model kit manufacturers. A while back Mirage Hobby of Poland released the first of their line of Kriegsmarine subs, the Coastal Types IIa, IIb, IIc, and IId. Even though they were in the less popular (at least in the U.S.) scale of 1/400, I was still very pleased because the little Type IIs had not been available previously in injection molded plastic. They assemble quickly into attractive little 4 inch long models, and for less than $7 each they are very affordable. |
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The hull shapes are
basically accurate, with the conning towers and decals especially well
done. The Types IIa, IIb, and IIc have, like the prototypes, the same
basic hulls with superstructure and weapons differences. I was impressed
that Mirage Hobby didn’t succumb to the temptation to reuse the earlier
hull on the Type IId to save tooling costs; it was a noticeably different
shape, and they nailed it pretty well. Nevertheless, the faint plank
detailing of the decks and the rather crude renditions of the drainage
openings in the hull sides were a little disappointing. The drainage
vents are only depicted by indistinct dimples on the hull sides, and they
aren’t even in line. These could be fixed of course, but it would have
been a major job of filling in and reopening the dozens of oval holes on
four different boats. Given the basic accuracy of the models otherwise I
considered taking this on...but in the end I took the easy way out and
just built them more or less straight out of the box. This is just as
well, because Mirage has since released separate photo etch upgrade sets
for the Type IIs which include hull panels with
the corrected limber holes. As
it was, the only improvements I made to the kits were photo etch
anchors, some photo etch and wire railing and a little rigging. The flags
were those provided in the kit decal sheets. These little guys were a kick to build. Yeah, they’ve got problems, but when was the last time you had this much fun for less than seven bucks? |
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