History
Built in Finland, Vesikko was in fact a prototype of the German Type II submarine class. Vesikko, also known by her manufacturing code CV707 was put to service with the Finnish Navy in 1936 and went on to serve until 1944. She took part in both the Winter and Continuation Wars and in 1959, she became a permanent exhibit in Suomenlinna fortress and is displayed there ever since.
In the box
Packed in a top opening box the cover shows the Vesikko running on the surface in the spring 1943 splinter camo scheme.
The contents have seven grey sprues, one small photo etch sheet, several runners of resin parts, two turned metal parts, a set of instructions and a small decal sheet.
Casting is very nice with only a little flash present and ejector pin marks are on the inside of the parts, so most should not cause any issues during the build. The sprue gate attachment points are rather large on some parts, especially the hull.
The hull which features the weld lines which omitted the usual riveted hulls on earlier U Boats, is moulded into four parts, so warpage is kept to a minimum if it was cast as two full halves.
All the flood holes are moulded open, but a little sanding will be needed as there is a little excess plastic proud of the holes.
Several holes need to be drilled out for other parts, and the positions are shown in the instructions.
The forward torpedo tubes need adding to the inside of the hull along with a hatch.
The deck is in three parts, to which several deck parts are added.
A very light plank effect is moulded onto the deck parts along with various hatches and non wooden parts.
Railings are supplied in the form of plastic parts for the deck, with stantions supplied for the railing posts, wire or 00.3mm line which is not supplied will be needed for the actual hand railings.
Depending on what marking option you are modelling depends on which other parts such as masts need to be fitted.
The underside has the prop shafts, rudder and hydroplanes added along with some resin propellers.
The conning tower is nicely detailed with a busy look to it, but parts F4 and F5 which are the main conning tower parts need the shape adjusted by 1.0mm, which does not look that easy to do (hopefully it is).
The conning tower has some very nicely moulded on details in the form of hatches and some very fine vents.
The details added to it are also superb with a very subtle riveted flooring for the conning tower deck. Moulded on spars for the inside of the tower add to the detail.
Photo Etch Parts
The small sheet of photo etch has six parts, with four of the parts attaching to the bow of the subs hull. Two parts with the name "Vesikko" etched onto them are not shown to be used in the instructions. If you are modelling the museum sub this can be used as the name is found on the forward hull.
Resin Parts
The resin parts are cast in grey and are very well moulded.
Most of the parts are for the isolators found on the radio ariel. All these parts need 00.5mm holes drilled into them.
The main resin parts are the propellers. The prop blades are nice and thin, but the angle of them looks a little off to my eyes, although one of the blades has broken off in my sample.
The rest of the parts are for various vent tubes and bollards.
Turned Aluminium Parts
There are two metal periscopes which are beautifully turned and will really add to the build.
The beauty of the metal scopes is there won't be any seams to fill and sand.
Instructions, decals and markings
The instructions are printed on a glossy colour booklet with 16 pages.
The first page holds the history of the CV 707 Vesikko, with the parts tree on the following page.
The build itself takes place over 38 steps on eight pages. The following four pages have full colour painting and decaling guides.
The last two pages are advertisements for other Special Hobby products.
The build on first glance looks quite confusing with the measurements for drilling the various holes in the hull at the beginning of the build, but once you really take a good look at them the build seems quite straightforward, although a bit of experience with mixed media kits would be helpful.
The decals are possibly printed in house by Special Hobby, and as there are only around 8 decals I cant see them being a problem as they are glossy, with minimal carrier film.
Four camo options are supplied with the kit, and are as follows -
A - CV 707 Vesikko, 1933-39. Grey upper hull and conning tower, wooden deck and red/brown lower hull.
B - CV 707 Vesikko, 1939-40. The grey areas were replaced with black. Conning tower has a white number "5" on each side.
C - CV 707 Vesikko, 1943. Off white splinter camo on the black sections. Yellow band on the conning tower and bow, which was standard recognition of ID of German submarines.
D - CV 707 Vesikko, 1944. Towards the end of her service the sub was stripped of the splinter scheme and reverted back to the black uppers.
Mfg. ID: SN72004
Suggested Retail: 1.679 Kč
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