Bought this a few years ago - Ebay I’m sure. 1988 kit. Reads U-505 but from what I’ve learned in forums here and other places, it can’t be - the boat is shaped like a VII C.
Finally getting ready to build (before I try - and wreck - my newer Revell 1/144 & 1/72 kits with after market parts etc.)
So I’m just looking for confirmation so I build it “correctly”!
That is correct. One can not build U-505 from that kit. But many other famous Type VII C U-boats can be made from it. Have fun.
It is a reasonably good model of a Type VII-C for its age, but has been greatly outclassed by the Revell Type VII-C in 1/144 scale. Enjoy this “blast from the past”! I am sure that you will do it justice, especially given your recent outstanding 1/350 scale boats!
Bill
Amen. I’ll try to pick a “good” one. I guess I need to research the boats configured the way this model presents (wintergarden, guns, etc.)
Hokey,
This kit was also once released as U-99, as well as U-47 showing a rudimentary interior. Although it could serve as U-99, it cannot serve as U-47 because the sail is wrong.
Bill
No problem! I have built 1 1/350 sub but it needs some more “finishing”!
I’ve got the “open” U-47 (1/125) in my stash. And I have a newer U-99 Revell - also 1/125. (I sure wish they were all 1/144 so they displayed “correctly” with the other 1/144’s I’ve got to build).
Other boats that fit the configuration?
The release of this kit as “U-505” was something of a scandal in the industry. The Revell brass apparently hoped to capitalize on the popularity of U-505 as a tourist attraction in Chicago. Loren Perry, who was then the editor of Sea Classics magazine, blew the whistle. (I imagine other people did too.) The gift shop at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry announced that it would no longer sell the kit, and Revell took it off the market.
I thought at the time, and I still think, that the mistake had at least as much to do with ignorance as with dishonesty. I strongly suspect that nobody in Revell’s management at the time had the least idea that there was a difference between a Type VII U-boat and a Type IX. Unfortunately I don’t see that the situation has changed much in the years since then. A couple of years ago Revell reissued its old Treasury-class Coast Guard cutter with the name Taney, and proudly announced on the box that the Taney “currently serves on the Atlantic sea frontier.” At the time of that release she had in fact been out of commission and serving as a museum ship in Baltimore for more than twenty years. I sent Revell a nastygram about that one; of course I didn’t get an answer.
Caveat emptor.
Interesting story! Thx for the info. The museum eventually did in fact sell a correct style boat. I built it a few years ago. It seems like it’s closer to a 1/150 or smaller scale though. http://flic.kr/p/b2fmrz
