Hello everyone,
In September of this year Revell will release a 72nd Type IXC kit with early war (Turm 0) tower. This is bound to be a big hit with modellers and I know many of us will be building the kit later in this year. For those of you who aren't as yet planning to build this kit then you need to change your plans and choose which IXC you want to build.
Some shots of the forthcoming kit can be seen here -
http://www.ipmsdeutschland.de/Marine/Krabbenhoeft/U-154_Typ_IXc_frueh.htmlThe team behind U-Boot im Focus magazines - Axel Urbanke and Olaf Krabbenhoeft - have just released a set of decals to allow us to build a wide choice of early IXCs. I would like to bring you the following review of these decals.
A photo of the decal sheet is below -
The boats covered are U 66, U 67, U 68, U 126, U 128, U 129, U 130, U 153, U 155, U 156, U 502, U 503, U 504, U 507 and U 509. The emblems could change over time and where this was the case there are different emblems available for each boat. The 10th U-Flottille emblem is given for three boats; crucially these are slightly different sizes. The slight difference in flotilla decal size is a sign of a very well researched product.
I've had a close look at all the designs and compared them with period photos and drawings in Hoegel's emblem book and everything is in order. They have been designed to the highest quality as we expect from their existing products.
One aspect of U-boat emblem decals is placement. There was no standard place or size for emblems and this varied between boats. Luftfahrtverlag Start has chosen to include a full colour printout which has a period photo of each boat. Each of these photos makes it possible for the modeller to know exactly where to place the decal. One side of the printout can be seen here -
http://www.ipmsdeutschland.de/FirstLook/Decals/Start_Verlag/UiF_Typ_IXC_72/UiF-Decals_Typ_IXC.htmlThe sheet was printed by Cartograph so they are excellent quality as we would expect with the colours being very sharp.
There is one extra part of this product which is above and beyond what we would expect. On U 504 (on both sides) the emblem was painted on top of a disc with raised detail. In this set are two resin parts with the raised detail, meaning that the modeller can depict this perfectly. Similarly, there is a small resin part for the axe on U 153, which was also seen as raised detail on the real boat. All three resin parts are thin and will greatly enhance a finished model. Some details can be found at the bottom of this page -
https://www.luftfahrtverlag-start.com/Here is a photo of the resin items -
The decals can be ordered from here -
https://www.luftfahrtverlag-start.com/decals/AMP was planning to release decals for the kit but due to the quality release by Luftfahrtverlag Start there is no need for us to do this. Note that it says the sheet will not be reprinted so if you are thinking of getting them it would be best to purchase ahead of the Revell release.
I can't think of anything else that a modeller could possibly wish for (resin in a decal set is somewhat more than expected) so this is very highly recommended.
My thanks to Benedicte Urbanke for the review sample.
Cheers,
Dougie
PS U-Boot im Focus 16 is also out. Good photos of U 393 with an armoured box on either side. Also there are more photos of U 481, a late war VIIC with stunning camo scheme (with planked deck, Askania, no snort, Turm IV). Editions 17 and 18 will be out later in the year and will feature special attention to IXCs to coincide with the forthcoming Revell release.
