1/35 scale type 23

[trout]

The one with a white line was a very late war or end of war paint job.

This is a colorized photo.

[MFR1964]

Yes Tom, that's the french XXIII boat in her after war colour, i suspect it's made up by the Frenchies and not by the Germans.
Manfred.

[trout]

Ah, French boat, did not know that part. Thank you Manfred! In the assembly instructions this is one of the paint schemes the show, but lead you to believe it is German. I find the white line interesting, because they painted it with the waterline as the aft end lower in water like the boats ran. Mark picked a cool color scheme.

[greenman407]

Thanks for the colorized picture Tom

[Von Hilde]

Small problem with the colorised "white"line actually was yellow. Yellow stripe indicated training boat. Most of which were captured at the end of the war. Hence the French ending up with the painted boat as is. In that particular picture. the boat obviously has been rode hard and put away wet. In a french yard for spit and polish before commisioning in the frog navy, folks. The einstiens that colorise the pictures have no idea what the actual true prismatics of the subject. The same goes for the pictures of the Type XXis that have been colorised. If you look at actual colored pictures taken by the Germans, the boats with stripes are yellow. Only a couple XXIIIs were actually deployed during the war. They were haphazardly slapped on paint jobs with bodatious white or black numbers just to get in the war. Nuttin fancy there. I have been contimplating getting one of those kits though. Would build the attack on the Hoover Dam boat, with Vergeltongswaffen/Rhientochter R-1 on the deck. It was possiblly the first surface to surface guided cruise missile. Most likely the most historic boat in the class as well as being uniquely unknown as to what almost happened near the end of the war Dec 44 in the middle of the United States. U boat with guided missile in the Colorado river in the Arizona/California desert. The whole story reads like a Hollywood movie. Spys, Nazi escaped prisoners, Movie stars, Japanese Navy secret bases inBaha, government cover ups. Im surprised no one has made a movie of the event.

[greenman407]

Von Hilde, I have actual color pictures, and have posted them under "recent U boat pictures" of yellow stripes on the conning tower. However, I was under the impression that stripes on the conning tower and stripes on the hull, were two different things. May I ask if you have a reason for your belief in the yellow hull stripes? Not saying your wrong but perhaps there is a source you could point to. Because I asked this same question, before I painted them white. Not that its going to change the world if I leave them white.

[HardRock]

Small problem with the colorised "white"line actually was yellow. Yellow stripe indicated training boat. Most of which were captured at the end of the war. Hence the French ending up with the painted boat as is. In that particular picture. the boat obviously has been rode hard and put away wet. In a french yard for spit and polish before commisioning in the frog navy, folks. The einstiens that colorise the pictures have no idea what the actual true prismatics of the subject. The same goes for the pictures of the Type XXis that have been colorised. If you look at actual colored pictures taken by the Germans, the boats with stripes are yellow. Only a couple XXIIIs were actually deployed during the war. They were haphazardly slapped on paint jobs with bodatious white or black numbers just to get in the war. Nuttin fancy there. I have been contimplating getting one of those kits though. Would build the attack on the Hoover Dam boat, with Vergeltongswaffen/Rhientochter R-1 on the deck. It was possiblly the first surface to surface guided cruise missile. Most likely the most historic boat in the class as well as being uniquely unknown as to what almost happened near the end of the war Dec 44 in the middle of the United States. U boat with guided missile in the Colorado river in the Arizona/California desert. The whole story reads like a Hollywood movie. Spys, Nazi escaped prisoners, Movie stars, Japanese Navy secret bases inBaha, government cover ups. Im surprised no one has made a movie of the event.

Thoughts? During World War II the Germans were obsessed with destroying Hoover Dam. One plan after the other came on the table. There is a story on the internet that shows up in a half a dozen places about a German attempt to take out the dam using a submarine. The story tells of the supposedly last mission of the German submarine U-133 that was to travel up the Colorado River from Baja, California and destroy the dam. The same story is repeated basically over-and-over, word-for-word, on all of the internet sites except for maybe one or two that leave out the so-called source. When the source is cited it is always a somewhat questionable and rather elusive publication called the USS Shaw Newsletter from the year 1996.
In a sort of epilogue to the internet story, nearly all of the articles then go on to explain why the so-called mission could not have been accomplished the way it is written. The U-133 could not have carried enough fuel to make it from Europe to it's designated target, there were a bunch of dams on the river in the way before it would have ever got to Hoover Dam, etc., etc. Of course none of them mention the fact that on March 14, 1942, barely three months into the war, the U-133 sank with all hands off the coast of Greece due to navigation error and a mine explosion --- and that the loss of the U-133 was fully substantiated in 1994 by a diving team that managed to locate and confirm the identity of the wreck. So said, there is absolutely NO way the U-133 could have been involved in any way shape or form regarding Hoover Dam or any sort of an attack against it.[1]
Not one thing regarding the alleged attack by the U-133 or any other submarine has been discovered in official German records nor has anything shown up on the American side. As for the internet source, nobody I know, including myself, has been able to run down a copy of the 1996 USS Shaw Newsletter that supposedly ran the original article. Neither have I been able to learn who the author was and where his or her original source for the story came from.

[bwi 971]

Regarding blowing up dams the Germans were beaten by the British….. although they didn't use a submarine but bouncing bombs “Operation Chastise”.

Grtz,
Bart

[trout]

Von Hilde, I have actual color pictures, and have posted them under "recent U boat pictures" of yellow stripes on the conning tower. However, I was under the impression that stripes on the conning tower and stripes on the hull, were two different things. May I ask if you have a reason for your belief in the yellow hull stripes? Not saying your wrong but perhaps there is a source you could point to. Because I asked this same question, before I painted them white. Not that its going to change the world if I leave them white.

I have not found a source for yellow line on the hull's waterline. I believe you are fine with white.

[MFR1964]

I dived into my archives and only found those yellow stripes on the tower,deck or exhaust, meaning that the boat is in UAK, this happened with all boats prior to delevery, done to iron out the problems before they went into action.
Either that white waterline mark is a scumline or painted by the French, the Germans where very conservative with their RAL colours, usually darkgrey under the waterline and lightgrey above, only the last period of the war they added darkgrey to their decks, done to be less visible near the surface for spotting from airplanes.

Manfred.

[greenman407]

I try to keep an open mind about things.

[greenman407]

Today, I worked on the rudder and its associated componants. The way it was the rudder throw was biased in one direction with less range of motion in the other direction. So I spent time to sort that out. Also the offending rudder set screw problem was fixed by drilling numerous holes in the rudder along the shafts length. Then dripping thin CA down inside. Then putting in some body filler. The profile of the rudder is not thick enough for any more than a couple of threads for the set screw or another one. Thats why I took this route.

[greenman407]

Tomorrow, Im going to get this thing wet, along with the Skipjack. Photos and video will be in the offing. Its been LONG OVERDUE!

[redboat219]

Can't wait

[trout]

How did it go? Do we have pictures yet?