1:144 Kriegsmarine U-Boat U-96 Das U-Boot

A submarine known even to those who do not build models

U-96 belonged to Type VIIC, the most widespread variant of the German Type VII family, of which over five hundred were built during the war. She entered service in the autumn of 1940, operated out of Lorient in France and carried the emblem of a laughing sawfish on her conning tower. Under the command of Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock she completed eleven war patrols and ranked among the most successful boats of her flotilla.

Her worldwide fame, however, did not come from the tonnage she sank. On one of her patrols she carried the war correspondent Lothar-Günther Buchheim, who turned his notes into the novel Das Boot; Wolfgang Petersen filmed it under the same name in 1981. The cramped control room, the hull creaking under depth charges and the exhaustion of the crew lodged themselves in the public mind so strongly that most people today picture Type VIIC through this one boat.

What building in 1:144 involves

In this scale a Type VII comes out at around forty-seven centimeters, large enough for the free-flooding holes in the casing, the railing around the conning tower and the gun on the forward deck to show, and still small enough to fit an ordinary display case. It pays to glue both hull halves together in one go and let them cure thoroughly before working on the seam; on a long, slender hull a wave otherwise appears easily. The gray Atlantic finish looks better when it is shaded in vertical bands, with the streaks of fuel oil and the rust around the free-flooding holes going on top of it.

• a Type VIIC submarine in 1:144 scale
• the finished model is around forty-seven centimeters long
• the real subject is the boat made famous by a novel and by the 1981 film
• a rewarding subject for a finish with pronounced corrosion and traces of service