Going to the deep side : U-552 DKM 1/48

[thierry laurent]

7 minutes ago, red Dog said:

Good tip, many thanks. Didn't know anything about that

By the way, standard oil paint brands such as Windsor & newton also have similar products.

[LSP_K2]

5 hours ago, red Dog said:

Initially I wanted to have this beast surfaced but in a transparent resin box to simulate the ocean.

This seems to be overkill and present too many challenges (experience with large volume of deep ocean water resin, costs and a high risk of not seeing anything inside after all. 
I would love to have a resin box that I could add or remove the sub from. But that's something I can hopefully give some thoughts at the last stage of this project.

 

One possible solution to that, would be to just paint the inside of the case with some blue or greenish ocean colors.

[Zola25]

I have been really close to getting this kit a number of times. At 1/48 it just ticks all the "crazy" boxes to make me smile.

 

This is certain to turn out amazing and I will surely follow along 

 

Niels 

[ChuckD]

Awesome.  Can't wait to watch this one!

[Rampenfest]

This is ridiculously cool! Nice work with the 3D printed bunks! Looks very nice. 

[John1]

Some seriously good modeling going on here.   Random question - wonder why nearly all models out there of U-boats are of early war versions.   I find the late war ones much more visually interesting with the large "winter garden" filled with flak guns, snorkel, radar, etc.     Just my $0.02. 

[red Dog]

Funny you mention this... the thought of converting to a late double windergarden platform crossed my mind.
Downside to that is that most of these late war U-boat lost the 88mm forward gun from 1943 onward, at least those operating in the Atlantic. And imho the 88mm (105mm on Type IX) are quite a U-boat feature. Maybe that's why most of the models are for early war U-boat.

But I agree with you, they look much more interesting. 

[BGB]

Hello,

Very nice job done on the sub there !! love the beds.

 

 

Cheers

Boris

 

[LSP_K2]

On 4/15/2024 at 10:00 AM, red Dog said:

Funny you mention this... the thought of converting to a late double windergarden platform crossed my mind.
Downside to that is that most of these late war U-boat lost the 88mm forward gun from 1943 onward, at least those operating in the Atlantic. And imho the 88mm (105mm on Type IX) are quite a U-boat feature. Maybe that's why most of the models are for early war U-boat.

But I agree with you, they look much more interesting. 

 

If I recall correctly, there were very few actual dedicated flak boats, and each one seemed to be different from the others. The good news, the 1:48 Flak 38 should be easily obtainable from other kits. Uboat.net can be a valuable source of data for a project of that sort.

[red Dog]

And resupply U-boats, providing fuel, munitions and food supply to the other attack boats. The story is quite interesting.

 

I stalled a bit on the forward torpedo room because of the empty foreground. 
Trumpeter wants you to simply place two air tanks there but that leaves a lot of empty spaces and play against the cramped area I want to try to depict with this build.

 

These tanks are not correctly located and are partly under the bunks. But if I build bunks on top of them they will be too high so I decided to cut the floor,
create a 3D piece to mirror the opposite side and display the lower bunks.

 

 

 

 

The tanks are relocated and attached from above. If I add a floor for them I'll hide too much of the torpedo storage room under the floor of the room.

That's not perfect but the best compromise I could come up with.

 

I intend to show a lot of supplies throughout the boat and try to render the mess it must have been in there with 40-50 stinking males confined in there.

I went to cult-3D and downloaded as much stuff as possible and scaled them to 48th scale. Plates, coffeepots, cooking pots, rice bags, potatoes bags, tin cans, fruit cases, salads, carrots, 88mm shells & cardboard casings, etc . All these will compliment nicely what I could gather from black dog supplies.

 

 

I just haven't found ham and sausages yet but I want them to hang from the floor and I am thinking about hanging hammocks full of supplies from the roof of the torpedo room.

 

Here's very early impression of what I am leaning to:

 

I am also debating to put 2 more torpedoes on the floor as it was often done, must made the crew life really difficult

 

 

[Jaro]

Wow! That's something new and unusual. Nice job, thanks for sharing (and keep going).

[red Dog]

I went to the market last weekend, and painted fruits and vegetables

 

Still WIP, a melting pot of Black dog and free 3D goodies. Not barely enough and I still need to raid the butcher and canned food compartment

 

In the meantime, I worked a bit more on detailing the torpedo tubes

 

 

Most of it is artistic licence as the parts are overly simplified and detailing realistically would take days if not weeks.

I basically added handles, wheels and a bit of cables 

Weathering still needed on the new cables

 

 

All elements except the roof are in place. 
still debating to put two extra fishes on the floor and I let tube 1 open for now as I may put a eel in there as well. I'll decide all this later on. 

[red Dog]

In the meantime, I received goodies from Czech Republic to up the boat to satisfactory level (kind of a poisoneous gift if you ask me

 

That's a lot of PEs... and a lot of cuts needed in styrene and plexiglass, not looking forward to that.

 

And a bit of resin

 

 

extra kit for extra correction and late modification for the boat. Of quite visible importance, the correction for the forward torpedo doors which are too long on the kit

 

And a lot to read:

 

The red devil boat depicts the 14th war cruises of U-552 and a very good read although life on board is lacking.
The crew book was sourced to overcome that issue and hopefully get more inside pictures.

The Im focus series is great as well, they are up on issue 21 and I have a lot of issues to catch up.

It is very refreshing and very interesting to learn a lot about something I had no idea about. 

 

 

 

 

[LSP_Ray]

Wow, that is a lot of PE! Good luck!