by Lars Jönlid
1/72 DKM U-552 Type VIIC/40 (Revell Germany)
U-boot type VIIC/40
History:
Built at Blohm&Voß, Hamburg and were to belong to 7. Unterseebootsflotille in St.Nazaire France.
U552 had as it´s first commander, Fregattenkatitän Erich Topp (RK,EL,SW) who was the third most succesfull
German u-boat commander in sunk tonnage. Between 16.2.41 – 13.8.42 U552 under Topps command sunk 152.250 BRT
plus 40.333 in damaged shipping, during 10 “feindfahrten” (travels against the enemy) lasting 298 days.
The build:
The kit is a Revell 1/72 that took about 7 months to finish, and as all “plastic nuts” know, you can do a lot of adding, to most kits! And especially to a kit in this size.
In my case I started with drilling/cutting open all flood holes, that´s 434 holes, and that really made my fingers blister!
All of the railings were thinned to (as close as possible) scale dimension, and of course several of them broke! But it really didn´t matter, since the aft supports for the longwave antennas are of the wrong shape anyway, new ones were made from soldered brass. The attack periscope stand had no details at all,
strange in this scale, and I may have went a bit overboard at this point, because I added 26 additional parts including the direction finding compass. At the same time I made the lower parts on both pericopes tubes in aluminum tubing for a more natural metallic look.
I have used Eduard PE set, it sure makes a difference in the apperance! New attachments for the life preservers, were made from brass sheet. The deck gun received a bunch of parts for the sight an elevation, the tampoon with it´s lanyard, holder for the same, and other parts.
The barrel of the AA gun was bent, so I made a new one from brass, together with new shoulder “pads” wich of course also broke off, in handling !
The screws in the kit have a mould release behind the blades that makes them look odd, so new hubs were made to get them correct. The attachment inside the conning tower, for the forward shortwave antenna, tension wires were added, I found that the thread included in the kit was almost perfect in scale dimension, all thread were waxed using bees wax that gives them a slight sheen and removes any fuzz. Navigation lights were given clear glass, the net deflector wires on the forward diveplanes (these wires can be found on all type VII) were made from concertina wire. Two G7E torpedoes were added, made from lathed brass for the port tubes that I left open.
Paint:
All wooden details were first painted “deep black” RAL 9005 this was to simulate the black wood preservative that were found on the originals, the deck were then painted gunship grey, the wood protection in the conning tower could be painted/unpainted, on u552 they were unpainted or very worn, showing the preservative.
The hull over the water line is Aeromaster 9112 medium sea grey straight from the tin, below the waterline is Modelmaster 1723E gunship grey sligthly muted with sea grey.
The screws were painted with a mixture of medium brown and bronze to get the right look Schmincke make pigment was used for most of the “rust” note that rust doesn´t run under the waterline. I have also painted a “physical” waterline that runs above/below the painted line, this can be seen on photos from the era.
Conclusion: This was a fun build, even though it took a long time!
