JAMES BOND LOTUS CAR-SUBMARINE TO 1:24 SCALE FROM FUJIMI

“TRY NOT TO DAMAGE IT, 007…” That famous phrase from ‘Q’ in James Bond movies applied in spades to the famed Aston Martin DB5. But it also related to another Bondmobile, the Lotus Esprit S1 that served double-duty as a submarine in the 1977 film The Spy Who Loved Me.

UNDERWATER ADVENTURE WITH 1:400 SCALE AIRFIX ‘DAS BOOT’ SUBMARINE

INTERESTED IN NAVAL MODELS? Well, here's a kit that may have slipped in under your radar. It features the submarine that featured in the 1981 German film Das Boot (The Boat) which tells the story of a German crew and their vessel during World War II.

MOEBIUS ‘SEAVIEW’ VOYAGE SUB UPDATE

SMN report:

Moebius Models have posted some extra pictures of the latest Seaview submarine kit. When assembled, the kit should measure some 990 mm (39 in) long, and it looks very good indeed. In the words of one pleased modelmaker: “When they say huge they mean it. It is a big sub with some great detail work. I made the mistake thinking after I built it, my son could play with it in the tub, WRONG. I do not know what I was thinking...”

AHOY THERE... ‘SKIPJACK’ AND ‘SEAVIEW’ NUCLEAR SUBS APPROACHING FROM MOEBIUS

SMN report:

Mat Irvine reported from the 2011 iHobby Expo in November, and one of the upcoming kits that looked very interesting indeed was the 1:72 scale USS Skipjack nuclear submarine. Well, the sub’s now coming into view and should be available very soon indeed.

MOEBIUS MODELS AT THE 2011 iHOBBY EXPO

Mat Irvine reports:

The 2011 iHobby Expo show took place from October 20-23, at the Rosemont Center, near Chicago, Illinois. It's an amazing place to visit, as it showcases a mind-boggling array of model and hobby products. 

COMING SOON - DEEP DIVING SHINKAI 6500 SUBMERSIBLE IN TWO SCALES

SMN report:

The Japanese Shinkai 6500 is the world’s deepest-diving crewed submersible. It’s capable of going down 6500 metres (4.03 miles), carrying two crew and a researcher inside the titanium pressure hull.

And now there are two upcoming kits of this interesting DSV (deep-submergence vessel), one at 1:48 scale from Bandai, and a 1:72 scale kit from Hasegawa. Both should be available soon.

UNDERSEA ATTACKER - THE GERMAN BIBER MIDGET SUB FROM ITALERI

SMN report
Italeri’s latest 1:35 scale nautical kit is the neatly produced Biber (‘Beaver’) one-man midget submarine from World War II. To this big military-model standard scale, even the Biber works out to a fair size in model form, in this case some 186 mm (7.3 in) long. It comes with two well-sculpted figures, as well as decals for three different subs, and a small etched-metal fret with super-detail parts.

Biber on view at the Imperial War Museum
There are quite a few Bibers on display in military museums across Europe - the one pictured above is on view in the UK’s Imperial War Museum, London. It’s a place well worth visiting, and if you build the Italeri Biber kit, seeing the real thing complete with its quota of lumps, bumps, scrapes, dings and dents, will allow you to add those extra details to take the Italeri sub from smooth-but-a-bit-dull ‘stock’ to knocked-about-and-real ‘superb’.

Biber armament
In service, the Biber could carry two 530 mm (21 in) torpedos or a pair of mines, but the tiny U-boat was introduced late in the war and never became a big threat to its primary target, Allied coastal shipping. It had a limited range of some 185 km (115 miles) and could manage a speed of less than 10 km/h (6.2 mph) underwater. Over 300 Bibers were built, but they met with little success in combat operations, and most were damaged or sunk by Allied forces.

One-man Biber operations
Spare a thought for the man at the Biber’s controls - military operations generally lasted for one or two days, and the pilot-operator had to stay on combat-alert throughout the mission. To help do this, he refuelled on a diet of caffeine-boosted chocolate, or downed tablets of D-IX, a cocaine-based drug brewed up by Nazi scientists to keep him wide-eyed and awake. Apparently, earlier tests with D-IX on full-pack carrying troops had resulted in non-stop marches for anything up to 90 km (55 miles) before total collapse.

SMN note - A couple of the pictures look somewhat squashed, which is a software issue... we'll see what can be done. Meantime, if you click on any pic, the usual enlargement will show it undistorted.

Visit IWM London here.

See the Biber here.

View other Italeri military kits here.

The pictures show, top to bottom:
1  Italeri kit box.
2  Cleanly-pressed injection parts.
3  Italeri supplies details for three different subs.
4  Accurately printed decal sheet.
5  Biber mini-sub in the Imperial War Museum, London.
IWM picture courtesy Conny Liegl.