Bronco Type XXIII in 1/35th scale

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Good stuff, Steve. The below waterline is indeed dark gray. Yes, I'll go with the yellow stripe. The dark vertical band under the ladder rungs is there to hide scuffing from boots, I bet it's black or dark gray not red.

Also, I read that in the later years of the war brass was so hard to come by that the propellers were cast from steel -- so, I'll polish up my white-metal propeller and oxidize it a bit then overcoat it with matt lacquer.

David

[alad61]

David, a "detail nut" I am, well to a point anyway but I personally don't prescribe to the pre-shade thing. Always seems a bit of a cheat to a paint job. Shading, wash & inks, some drybrush, chalk/pastels and blending work best for me when it comes to highlighting panels, lines, seams, nuts n bolts etc. What I do need to do though is successfully master your oil canning effect. :biggrin:

[trout]

I am not against or for pre-shading. It all depends on your reference or what effect you are trying to achieve. There are so many different opinions about what you see, can see, or duplicate in a scale model, that I go for what I like or works. Even if that means the weld seam is a little too big or the rivet is 15% too large or the colors are not exactly right. As far as the stripe down the front under the rungs, I believe it was black or a very dark gray (grey - which is correct?) I have seen photos of other u-boats that have the same stripe under the rungs and some US also did that too!

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Took a break to work up storage-shipping-boxs for the Bronco Type-23 and my long suffering 31" NAUTILUS. What's the point of putting all that work into your little master-piece if you don't take positive measures to keep it out of harms way between here and the water?

[herrmill]

Most excellent work as always, David!

[ffr2608]

Nothing wrong with pre-shading for me. It just seems to be overdone and exaggerated most of the time. Weathering is a subtle art that I am still trying to tame. I prefer to wash my stuff with thinned enamels.

D

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Is that you, Darrin? Love the weathering. And agree with your points. I would have hit the waterline on your S-class boat a bit harder, though. Mike will be very jealous when he sees this.

David

[Subculture]

I was in Chatham historic dockyards last week, they had the original wooden patterns for the S-class used by the builders for the plate layout of that class, many of whome were built there.

[ffr2608]

Dave, Why is Mike editing your post? Something very fishy going on here. That boat is sold and on a shelf in Japan....$$$$$$$$$$$$$

D

[goshawk823]

David- How did the run at Nauticus go this weekend?

[greenman407]

Warpatroller, on the previous page a discussion was going on about stripes being yellow or white. Someone was looking for a photo of these stripes in color taken during wartime. I took a look in one of my files and I came up with a couple of photos and I will keep searching. They are not of a type 23 but are still noteworthy. One has the whole front of the sail painted white and the other appears to have a yellow band around the sail.

[roedj]

The subs pictured in color are Type II (I think) which were used for training throughout most of the war so a yellow stripe to indicate a training sub makes sense.

Dan

[Warpatroller]

The boats on the left are Type II. That could be Bronco's follow up 1:35 U-Boat kit.. With that HIGH freeboard, it will be fun to see David keep the top of his Sub-Driver tube beneath the waterline on that one.. Surface stability won't be as good as the XXIII, but I still like that Type II. Are you reading this Bronco? Make it happen! I can tell that David can't wait to get started on designing yet another fittings kit.

I wonder what Dönitz would say if he knew the Chinese, of all people, were manufacturing little models of his boats and everything else for that matter.. There is a man who would know the correct color of the training bands.. You would think someone would have asked him about that before he died 32 years ago.. But, I suppose, only .00001% of the Earth's population would even care about that kind of information.

Greenman, that photo you posted is nice.. The stripe looks almost like a cream color. A desaturated yellow as opposed to the more saturated yellows I have seen some modelers use.

I read the comments about the dark stripe, up the front of the 23 tower, in that photo I posted. Could be dark gray, black or red.. No way to really prove one over the other. Plus how do you tell apart, for sure, post-war colorized photos versus actual war-time color photos. As far as to hide scuff marks from climbing up and down the ladder rungs, doesn't seem like it would be the specific reason for it to be there. Most photos of boats with training bands don't have the dark stripe. Front boats on active war patrol would not have any bands or stripes on the tower, or markings of any type (except for the boat emblem if it had one).

I have photos of 3 different XXIII boats with the dark stripe on the front. Would be interesting to see if there are any more out there somewhere. I think they were on the tower as a specific training designation marking along with the yellow bands. Two of those three boats I mentioned, with the dark stripes, were built at Germaniawerft. Most of the XXIII boats were built at Deutschewerft.

The white boat numbers you see in photos, especially on XXIII towers, were applied to the boats after they had been surrendered to the Allies. Many of those photos showing those white numbers are from Operation Deadlight. If you want to depict an Operation Deadlight XXIII awaiting orderly disposal, before it was used as target practice and sent to the bottom, you can put one of those sets of numbers on the tower that Bronco provides in their kit.

The longitudinal side stripe (on the hull) Bronco shows in their painting instructions, probably came from U2326, which became the British N35. David could paint his like that before he gives it to Caswell, since it will be transferred to British hands.. That is a weird marking in itself, kind of like a muscle car stripe...

[greenman407]

I will look in some of my other files today and see what I can come up with

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Sorry about my brief absence -- computer was down for about four days ... however did I survive!!!!

Anyway, here's the latest poop on the Type-23 task: