BlueBrixx
BlueBrixx Submarine U 96 Typ VII C Set 102624
BlueBrixx's Submarine U 96 Type VII C is a 1:300 model built from 827 blocks, and the set includes parts to build a U-boat pen alongside the boat, modelled on La Pallice near La Rochelle. Designed by Ralf. No stickers or prints. Age 14+. Instructions are supplied as a free download after registering on the BlueBrixx website.
The bunker is the interesting half of this set
Most submarine models give you a submarine. This one gives you the thing that made submarines survivable, and it is worth knowing what you are building.
By 1941 Allied bombers could reach the French Atlantic ports, and a U-boat in dock is helpless. The German answer was concrete: enormous covered pens with roofs three and a half metres thick, later reinforced to seven metres and more, with detached burster slabs above them to set off a bomb before it reached the main roof.
They worked completely. Thousands of tonnes of bombs were dropped on the pens at Lorient, Saint-Nazaire, Brest and La Rochelle, including the heaviest weapons the RAF possessed, and not one boat inside was destroyed while the roofs held. The towns around them were flattened.
The pens are still there. Demolishing them costs more than anyone is willing to spend, so they have been converted into marinas, concert venues, film studios and museums β La Pallice appears in Das Boot, filmed on location.
U 96
A Type VIIC, the most-produced submarine class in history with over 570 built. U 96 is the boat from Das Boot, and the film follows a patrol that is broadly based on her seventh.
The Type VIIC was small, cramped and had no accommodation worth the name β crews of around 44 men shared bunks in shifts. Three in four German submariners did not come home, the worst casualty rate of any arm of any service in the war.
In the range
COBI's set 4857 is the same boat at 1:144, and 4852 and 4858 are other Type VII submarines β useful if you want U 96 larger.
Specifications
Pieces: 827 Β· Scale: 1:300 Β· Designer: Ralf Β· Series: BlueBrixx-Specials Β· U-boat pen included Β· No stickers Β· Instructions as free download
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