Pavla 1/72 X-Craft Kit First Look

By Michael Benolkin

First Look

The X-Class midget submarine was a design that was used by the Royal Navy during the latter part of World War 2. The X-Class was a four-man boat that was towed to an operational area by a larger submarine where the X-Class' crew would penetrate the target area, lay its charges on the underside of a hull, then 'get out of Dodge' and rendezvous with its mothership for the voyage home.

There were 20 examples built, some of these were used against the German battleship Tirpitz which put that ship out of commission for over six months. One X-craft was used to put a reconnaissance team ashore over several nights to collect soil samples and survey the area for an upcoming operation called 'Overlord' on a beaches of Normandy.

Here is an interesting kit from Pavla. This is an all-resin 1/72 scale kit of the X-Craft submarine. The kit consists of 35 finely cast resin parts which consist of resin hull halves, main deck fairing and ballast vents, main deck, two hatches, stern planes, rudders, dive plane, propeller, snorkels, periscope, and other details.

The detailing cast into these parts is very nicely done, especially the main deck. Assembly will be quick and straightforward once the resin parts are removed from their casting blocks and cleaned up. Assembly is done using cyano-type adhesives as usual for resin-based kits and conversions. Care should be taken with the smaller bits, as it will be all-too-easy to knock off a snorkel or periscope while you're painting the boat.

While the X-Craft didn't carry any markings and they were painted overall gray, you can really turn this into an eye-catching model with the proper weathering and drybrushing techniques.

One thing you will have to provide is some form of display stand as this model will not sit upright because of the ventral fairing on the underside of the hull.

This is a very nicely done model and won't be a difficult build for the experienced resin modeler. This wouldn't be a bad model for the fledgling resin modeler (with experience in other mediums) though care will be required due to some of the small edges that will require cyano adhesives to build.

My sincere thanks to Pavla Models for this review sample!