Type IXC U-Boat
by Gianmarco Beltram

Nichimo 1/200 German Type IXC U-Boat

I have been an aficionado of U-boats for quite some time and so, I purchased this kit some months ago on a bit of a whim. At first I was reluctant to buy it because I had heard some mixed information regarding the kit and the fact that it was motorized. Jeff was kind enough to let me open the box in the store and after evaluating the parts I discovered that it was a normal model that had an option to be motorized. (Later I discovered that I had initially mistaken it for another manufacturer’s type IXB that is a motorized only kit) After examining the various sprues and parts I decided to go ahead and give it a try. Am I ever glad that I did.

After I began working with the Nichimo kit, I began to get more enthusiastic. As I removed the parts from the box, I was glad to see that the quality of the detail in the injection moulding was quite nice. It required very little cleanup with an x-acto knife. Assembly was relatively straight forward, yet, some attention needed to be paid to the alignment of the upper and lower hulls. Additionally, the assembly of the stern area around the screws and stern planes could get a bit challenging and having some way to support the hull inverted is a must while working on this area.

Fortunately the kit is split at the water line and the lower hull is a solid piece. This makes it very convenient to paint the lower and upper hulls. This also lends the kit to be assembled and displayed as a waterline kit should you so decide.

Through my travels in Europe I was able to acquire significant sources of information as well as a large number of actual engineering drawings of type VII and type IX. Thanks to the benefit of some of my German books on U-Boats as well as line drawings, I was able to fairly accurately match the colour schemes to how the boat would have looked when leaving on patrol in March of 1942.

If you follow the painting instructions provided, you will have a scheme of how the boat would have looked leaving the yard on delivery to the Kriegsmarine, that is red lead on the lower hull, black cheat line at the W.L., grey upper surfaces with a natural wood coloured deck with metal grates. I elected to use a scheme that was more indicative of how the boats would more likely have looked preparing to sail on patrol from one of the bases in the Bay of Biscay such as Lorient. A black hull below the water line, grey surfaces above, with the wooden areas of the deck painted a darker grey and natural metal grates. As I am a complete novice at airbrushing I elected to spray the model using conventional Testors Model Master Spray paints. I sprayed the entire model using the spray paints except for the metal grates and metal areas which were brush painted. For the grates, and all metal areas, as well as the shafts I used Humbrol’s polished steel colour and found I got almost the exact effect that I was looking for. I also used Humbrol’s Brass for the screws.  Some of the finishing details were fairly simple. I used fine black thread on the fore and aft parts of the boat to rig the HF/LW/MW radio antennas that are quite often referred to as net guards. I also used the thread for the anti-fouling lines on the forward dive planes. These were set in place with a little super glue.

The base…was another story. The kit comes with what I feel is a rather poor base considering the potential of the model to be a very nice finished product. Naturally, I felt I could do better. I took a block of wood that I bought, about 12” x 6” x 2” or so, and ran it through my table router with a Roman Ogee bit to give the base a finished look. I did not want just a block of solid wood. I stained it with a cherry stain and used 7/32” brass tubing to support the kit. I simply drilled two holes in the keel of the kit and the friction of the plastic against the tubing supports the kit. Finally I printed a label with U-507’s flotilla emblem and her name and applied that with photo mount onto a piece of sheet plastic. Then I attached the plaque to the base.

Why U-507? I chose U-507 as the namesake for this kit after reading her operational history. U-507 along with U-506 operated in the Gulf of Mexico in the spring of 1942 and they amassed quite a number of victories among them. U-507 sank several ships less than 30 miles from the mouth of the Mississippi river and had 10 victories during her patrol in the gulf in the spring of 1942. Many of the survivors were brought to New Orleans. Below I have included some of U-507’s particulars.
 

U-507
Type	IXC
Ordered	20 October 1939
Laid Down	11 September 1940		Deutsche Werfte AG, Hamburg
Launched	15 July 1941		Comissioned	8 October 1941
Commanders	8 October 1941 – 13 January 1943 Korvettenkapitan Harro Schacht (Knights Cross)
Successes	19 ships sunk – 77,144 GRT 1 ship damaged – 6,561 GRT
Fate	Sunk 13 Jan 1943 in the South Atlantic, North West of Natal, Brazil, in position S01°38’ W39°52’ by depth charges from a USN Catalina from VP-83. 54 dead, all hands lost.
Ships hit by U-507 while on Patrol in the Gulf of Mexico from 4 Apr 1942 - 4 Jun 1942.
Date	Name of Ship	Tonnage	Nationality	Fate
30 Apr 1942	Federal	2,881 tonnes	US	Sunk
4 May 1942	Norlindo	2,686 tonnes.	US	Sunk
5 May 1942	Munger T. Ball	5,104 tonnes	US	Sunk
5 May 1942	Joseph M. Cudahy	6,950 tonnes	US	Sunk
6 May 1942	Alcoa Puritan	6,759 tonnes	US	Sunk
7 May 1942	Ontario	3,099 tonnes	Honduras	Sunk
8 May 1942	Torny	2,424 tonnes	Norway	Sunk
12 May 1942	Virginia	10,731 tonnes	US	Sunk
13 May 1942	Gulf Prince	6,561 tonnes	US	Damaged
16 May 1942	Amapala	4,148 tonnes	US	Sunk
Technical Specifications
Length O.A.	76.76m
Beam	6.76m
Displacement:	1,081 tonnes
Range – Surfaced – Submerged	+/- 13,450nm @ 10 knots		+/- 80 miles @ 3 knots
Depth Capability-	Shipyard Certified		100m (328 feet)
	Test Depth		150m (492 feet)
	Crush Depth		250m (820 feet)
Typical Complement – 48 men	4 Officers, 6 Warrant Officers, 9 Petty Officers, 29 seamen.
Armament	4 Fwd Torpedo Tubes, 2 Stern Torpedo Tubes 12 reloads carried internally, 4 externally. 1 x 10.5 cm U-Bootkanone 1 x 3.7 cm FLAK 1 x 2 cm MG C/30