Horst Mürell Digital Navy German Torpedoboats V106 and V108

Original
Shortly before WWl the Vulkan-shipyard in Stettin received an order of the Dutch navy to build four destroyers. After the war broke out the German navy took over the four ships and commissioned them as torpedo-boats V105-V108 because they were significantly smaller than the average German destroyer. In difference to the other three boats V106 had two bow torpedo tubes. To compensate the weight of the additional torpedo tube her 88mm guns were replaced by lighter 52mm guns.

Only V107 was lost during WWI, the boat was mined in May 1915. V106 was scrapped in 1920. V105 and V108 were taken over by the Polish Navy after the war. V108 was renamed Kaszub and was lost after a boiler explosion at Dansk in July 1925. V105 (renamed Mazur) was sunk by the German air force on the first day of WWII.

Specifications: length 62,6m, breadth 6,2m, depth 2,5m, displacement 421ts, max. speed ca. 29kn.
armament: 2x 88mm gun (V106: 2x 52mm gun), 2x 45cm torpedo tube (V106: 3x 45cm torpedo tube).

Models
The idea to build these models came when I read an article by Steve Backer published on the steelnavy-site (see link below). He described a resin model of V106 in 1:700 scale designed by hp-models. I remembered the Digital-Navy V108-model and decided to alter this kit so that it would represent V106. With a graphic software the fore torpedo mount was painted over in the same colour as the deck and the boat number was changed to 106. Furthermore the fore part of the bulwark has to be cut away.

The V108 shown here was built from the original kit. Both models were printed on three different kinds of cardstock, on thick card (220gr) for formers and deck, on normal card (160gr) and on light card (100gr) for smaller parts. So you get additional parts such as ship´s boats, torpedo tubes etc.

The models were fitted with railings and ladders of painted fly screen and masts of steel wire. Torpedos were made of toothpicks and mines are pinheads. The figures came from Preiser. Flags and lifebelts were taken from Paper-Shipwright´s kit of the Imperial German river monitor "SMS Rhein" (also a free download-model, see link below).

Model	German Torpedo-boat V108 (free download)
Kit/Availability	www.digitalnavy.com
Designer	Roman Detyna
Scale	1:250
Difficulty	medium
Parts	130
Instructions	1 page diagram
Fit	good
Coloring and Artwork	good
Printing	no problems
References	Steve Backers article about V106 Paper-Shipwright´s "SMS Rhein"
Comments and Questions	horst.muerell@gmx.de