Mikro-Mir – 72026 – CB Class Midget Submarine

Description:

CB Class Midget Submarine
Italian WWII midget submarine

Unassembled plastic model kit in 1/72 scale of an Italian WWII midget submarine, CB-class midget submarine, produced by Caproni with around 21 units completed between 1941 and 1943.

The small submarine, with only around 15 meters length, had a crew of four men and its main armament were two, externally mounted, 450 mm torpedoes which could be replaced by two mines.

The history of this CB Class submarines is interesting not so much by their service record as for how many times they changed hands during the conflict.

The first batch produced, six submarines, CB-1 to CB-6, were transferred to black sea and after the 1943 armistice were transferred to the Royal Romanian Navy. This squadron has the most interesting service fact, as the CB-4 sank the Soviet Shchuka-class submarine Shch-203. Later the surviving submarines of this squadron were taken by the Soviets.

The second squadron, CB-7 to CB-12, was completed just before the armistice and they all surrendered to the allies, except CB-7, used as spare parts for others.

The last produced submarines, CB-13 to CB-22, under the Italian Social Republic, were mostly sunk in an allied air raid, CB-16 deflected to allies as well as CB-19 and CB-20 was captured by Yugoslav Partisans, remaining in service till the late 50s.

Mikro-Mir presents this excellent topic, first time as injected plastic kit in 1/72 scale, released in 2023 with the usual good quality of the brand. The set includes a small PE parts sheet, and builds pretty straight forward with just around 50 parts. The main hull is tooled in two separate halves, and of course, this kind of tool and build needs a careful step when joining this two parts and probably some filling and sanding. Being the biggest part of the kit, a small mistake here could ruin the overall aspect of the finished model.

For some modelers some interior detail could have been welcome, but the kit lacks of it. There is also a gap in the hobby of a suitable crew men for this submarine, such additions would have been nice to this release which anyway is a good kit for a never seen before topic.