Italeri 5609S 1/35 U-Boot Midget Submarine (Biber) D-Day 80th Anniversary

“Biber” was the most notorious “poket size” submarine deployed by the Kriegsmarine, German’s third Reich marine during the end of Second World War. The development of the Biber was extremely rapid. The design began in February 1944 and first examples were set to sea only 6 months later. With only 9 meters length, it was capable of a 240 kilometres range. Able to reach a merged maximum speed of 6,5 knots and 5,3 knots submerged. The Biber could have been equipped with two 530mm torpedoes mounted externally or with two mines. The crew consisted of only one member. The deployment of the Biber, within the Kriegsmarine strategy, was very simple: supply an efficient defence of the cost shore as protection to a possible, further more probable, Allied invasion. Anyhow, the Biber was never a serious threat for the Allied. Both due to it’s technical and design defects and for the crew trained, for war needs, excessively fast and without necessary formation. Nether the less, from 1944 till the end of the Second World War, the Kriegsmarine took delivery and placed in operation more then 300 Bibers.