My brother's 6th grade teacher had the Revell 1/125 U-47 with interior,
but felt he was too old to build models anymore. He commissioned me to
build it, but he wanted it closed up. Closing up those hull openings was going to be quite a task. Revell's U-99 uses the same molds mostly but is closed up with no interior, so I bought one on ebay
for about $12 with shipping. Most of what you see is this kit, though I used some bits from the U-47 kit, such as decals. One of these shows the tonnage claimed on the sixth
patrol, so I decided to model U-47 at this date, 6 July 1940. By this
time, the 20mm flak had been moved up to the conning
tower.
The U-99 kit has this feature, which the U-47 kit lacks, which makes
the former kit a better starting point. The U-99 kit also has deck railings that differ from those on U-47, so I used the U-47 ones. I printed my own flag and
tonnage pennants, added fishing line for rigging and fabricated
insulators from styrene, filled a few holes that weren't on U-47, and
weathered it, making a point of showing the diesel exhaust stains near
the stern and the "grass-weeds line," the green band that forms below
the waterline. U47.org
had a lot of useful photos that made my job easier, but sharp-eyed
U-boat experts will notice inaccuracies that I didn't bother to fix. I
did surgery on a few of the figures to make a variety of poses. The German inscriptions I painted on the base read,
"Kiel, July 6, 1940" and "at the end of the 6th Patrol."
Once I was done modifying the figures, I painted them and superglued them in
place. Hopefully I took enough photos, since I may never see this model
again after I drop it off tomorrow.
I like figures for adding some
story interest to a model. Captain Prien his XO stand together looking
three or four points off the starboard bow. In the "Wintergarten"
("greenhouse," the nickname for the flak platform with its wide
railing), two others who are happy to come home are waving to someone
off the starboard beam. Meanwhile, another officer with his hand on the
hatch looks down at someone climbing the ladder dressed in engineer's
overalls.
