These two submarine types, the mainstays of the battle of the Atlantic, should be too famous to need an introduction. With a bit of converting, you could build one of 163 type IXs and over six hundred type VIIs. The kit's VIIc is a basic mid production boat with a single 20mm AA gun and an Atlantic bow. The IXC is the type common in the first half of 1943, when the boats received prefab conning tower extensions for a heavier AA fit, but production problems limited them to two single 20mms. When Hitler sent the Japanese a gift sub in July of '43 that's what they got, which is likely why it was kitted by Hasegawa.

The U-boats also come with a target to keep them company: the bow and stern of a broken merchantman. For an article about improving that ship, see Tim Reynaga's article on steelnavy.com.

The Basic Review: Both kits measure out to within a couple of mm of the proper size and have fine, sharp detailing. They have single piece hulls produced in a multi piece mold so that there is detail on top and sides with no draft angle problems. The molds are a bit worn, so you'll have to fill some pitting and shrinkage. There's some flash at the deck edges and around the flooding holes. Add modern photoetched parts, especially to replace the over thick railing, and you'll have a couple of good-looking models in no time.

The AMS Review: Alas, there are some shape and proportion problems, especially on the VIIc. The overall size is off to a degree invisible to the eye, but dimensions of some of the smaller parts are noticeably wrong. The deck is about 1.5 mm too wide for most of its length, for example. Doesn't seem much, but the forward part of the deck should be 3mm wide or less, so it's 50% too wide. Find one of the many overhead photos taken by Allied ASW planes to see just how narrow that deck is. The real cross section of the sub's superstructure tapers in a straight line towards the top over much of the hull's length. Instead, the kit has sides that are slightly concave and become too vertical at the deck, or flare out too dramatically near the main gun mount. You can fix this partly by filing the hull at an angle to the vertical. Fixing this entirely will require a more heroic technique since you can't file the sides adequately without wiping out the flooding holes. Those holes are slightly too large and spaced too far apart, but fixing those are beyond the scope of this review.

But before you do that, you might want to fix the boat's profile. Most type VIIs have a sheer line (the curve of the deck) that sweeps up smoothly towards the bow, but the kit has this happen too abruptly from the deck gun to a point about 1.3 cm short of the bow. You CAN fix this without destroying either the deck detail or the flooding holes, using a method applicable to many kits with bad lines. The technique involves cutting the hull at the least destructive place in order to bend it to shape. In this case that's just below the deck, in a detail free zone. I started out by scraping the inside of the hull to thin the deck. I used an X-Acto blade with its tip broken off, one of the few tools to fit such tight confines. Next, I made the horizontal cut with a thin razor saw, just clearing the top of the uppermost flooding hole. I stopped cutting a few mm short of the deck gun and bent the deck (which was now quite flexible) to the proper curve, freezing it in place with super glue and accelerator. If you want to go all the way, you can cut the deck entirely free of the hull sides, file it to the proper plan view, and re-attach the lower hull aligned with the new, svelte form. The saddle tanks would then have to be puttied larger to restore the proper beam.

By adjusting mounting holes, the early and late conning towers can be allocated between the two subs as you desire. Neither is quite long enough, but both are a mm too tall for the type VII. The early tower has railings done in relief on a solid bulwark, and the late war AA decks have no railings at all, and both will be much improved by using Tom's Modelworks set 709 for Axis subs. If you extend the enlarged Wintergarden to the proper size, the photoetched set will no longer fit, so you'll have to do it the old fashioned way with wire and stretched sprue. I did a jig out of basswood and sheet styrene to more easily bend the wire to the proper shape. The periscope shears on the type IX have a plated in structure between the attack and search periscopes, as provided with the kit for both subs. The type VII should have separate shears for each: a narrow cone for the aft scope and a cylindrical sleeve for the forward scope.

The kits' deck guns are both the same. They're right for the IX's 105, but 2mm too long for the VII's 88. Both guns should have their mounts shortened slightly, otherwise your 1/700 gun crews will have quite a reach to load them.

After the radical surgery required for the type VII, you'll be relieved to hear that the type IX hull is about right. It has protruding ballast tanks below the row of flooding holes, but real IXA, B, or Cs have hull cross sections that continue downwards in a smooth curve. Just a couple of minutes of filing will give you the proper shape.