Cruel Seas 5th S-Boat Flotilla

I've been working out my initial Kriegsmarine force for Cruel Seas, using the various books that I have on coastal warfare with an emphasis on doing something historical rather than just painting up the models as generic schnellboote. I fancied replicating one of the units assigned to the Western end of the English Channel, based on my previous reading for my 1/600th scale coastal forces project and Bag the Hun, so plonked for the 5th S-Boot Flotilla operating from Cherbourg and the Channel Islands in late 1943 to mid-1944.

This gives me two options (italics = S-38b class / underline = S-100 class):

Autumn 1943

S65 / S77 / S81 / S82 / S112 / S115 / S116

Spring 1944 

 S84 / S100 / S136 / S138 / S139 / S140 / S142

This is all splendid except for the S-38b boats with the retrofitted 'kalotte' armoured bridge, just like the S-100 class, but with a different armament consisting, in most cases, of a twin 20mm amidships and a 40mm Bofors aft. So, if I'm being historically accurate, I would need to modify or adapt the S-100 models to make the armament and layout correct for the S38b. In some cases the amidships 20mm would not have been fitted either, leaving an empty weapons platform in the middle of the S-100 model.

S-100 (top) cut and shut with S-38 (bottom)

S38b with 40mm Bofors Aft

I could, of course, just ignore the difference and use the bog standard S-100 but I'd like to at least try to show the different armament configuration, so the 1944 flotilla would be he obvious choice to go for. I'd need to convert only two models in this case, simply by adding a 40mm Bofors mount on the aft gun position. However, I do have one spare sprue of boats including a slightly damaged S-100, which I could do a cut and shut with using the S-38 hull, to create an S-38b without the midships gun mounting. I quite like the idea of doing this even if it's a bit superfluous, just to see what the end result looks like?

A possible S-38b?

I also thought of ordering one of the Heroics and Ros S-38 / S-100 models, to see if they would be a good proxy for an S-38b. I'd need to replace the torpedoes with spares and possibly switch the gun mountings for Warlord ones, but it's a possible option if I want to replicate the 5th S-Boat Flotilla in it's 1943 configuration. In the end, its all a bit too much faff, so I'll probably just go for the 1944 line up, with some cosmetic changes to the S-100 models so that it's obvious which two are S84 and S138. I doubt I'd ever use all seven boats together anyway!