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XN923 · Bronze Star Joined: 16 May 2008 Posts: 1176

Out of interest, when was the last 1/600 ship tooled? I see Airfix is listing at least one 1/700 ship now (albeit one tooled by another manufacturer) but it would be a shame to lose the 1/600 scale for good, especially as there are some great ships from the Airfix back catalogue that are crying out for companions.

Dreadnought would be great, and with careful planning could include parts for the Bellerophon class which didn't differ all that much, and several of which were present at the Battle of Jutland.

Tiger is my personal favourite, possibly the best proportioned of all the battle cruisers, and the fastest until the under-armoured Renown/Repulse came along.

IIRC the Airfix Warspite is in WW2 configuration, which was rather ugly and difficult to convert to Jutland spec. I wonder if it would be possible to get another sprue with new upperworks to get a 1916 era Queen Elizabeth class?

I'd also like to see the 'Outrageous' (Courageous, Glorious and Furious, aka Outrageous, Uproarious and Spurious) class kitted, both in 'large light cruiser' and later aircraft carrier configurations - a man can dream, can't he? I imagine the market would be... select.

russ · Black Star Joined: 13 Nov 2007 Posts: 11

Maybe not as "select" as it appears.
Certainly in 1/350 scale the Royal Navy ships appear to be very popular, but the guys at White Ensign models would know for sure.
Warships are not really my area, though I do appreciate them both in prototype and model form, and I would have thought a Type 42 Destroyer for example would be a good seller.

Beaufighter · Posted: Wed 28 Jan 2009 11:47 am Post subject:

The main reason nobody's done a plastic Dreadnought is because most models are bought by the Americans and the Japanese. Ship modellers there have little to no interest in any warships other than WW2 Japanese, US and German, in roughly that order. That is, Japanese modellers like Japanese ships, US modellers like Japanese and US ships, and German ships sell on the Luftwaffe '46 principle.

90% of the ship modelling market isn't basically interested in WW1 because their countries didn't appreciably fight in it. ICM produced a 1/350 Koenig a few years back and it bombed.

1/600 would be a nice scale for WW1 ships because they're all markedly smaller than their WW2 counterparts. Dreadnought was about the same tonnage as HMS Belfast, give or take, so that gives one an idea of how small she'd be. In 1/700 alongside a 1/600 Hood she looks like a small cruiser.

My beef about ship kits is that every one that comes out or gets retooled is the same old boring 4 x 2 / 3 x 3 configuration. Every year another Yamato, another Bismarck...yawn.

As Steven says it would nice to have a wing turreted ship for a change and if someone were to tool a Goeben or an Agincourt, with a sprue of WW1 accessory bits, the scratchbuilders would buy shedloads just to get hold of all the turret and other goodies. It's not that much of a leap from a Goeben to a Von der Tann or a Seydlitz or indeed a Friedrich der Grosse.

The 1/700 market pays up to £20 quite happily for a boring battleship with no combat history (has USS New Jersey ever fired on another ship?), so a 1/600 Agincourt with spares should be priced at £25 rather than half that, as with the ageing Hood kits.

It could be though that any new 1/600 tooling would simply be a retool of a best seller and mightn't / needn't be in 1/600 anyway.
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XN923 · Bronze Star Joined: 16 May 2008 Posts: 1176

Yes, I've noticed before that the British ships that get kitted tend to be ones that were sunk by the Japanese or Germans - Hood, Repulse, Prince of Wales etc...

For me, the dreadnought era - by which I mean from the building of Dreadnought to the building of Hood - is the most fascinating period of military ship design, and the lack of mainstream kits from this period is disappointing. As you say, some different configurations would be nice. What about a 'Blucher', with hexagonal main armament, for example?

Beaufighter · Posted: Wed 28 Jan 2009 14:37 pm Post subject:

Indeed - I'd settle for a release or two that enabled you to scratch the rest of another ship. So an Invincible could be stretched to make and Indefatigable, a Moltke to make a Seydlitz, etc.
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XN923 · Bronze Star Joined: 16 May 2008 Posts: 1176

Goggles · Joined: 04 Feb 2009 Posts: 9 Location: Exeter

I'd buy some - I think they'd fly off the shelves!

Simon

Steven Pietrobon · Posted: Thu 12 Feb 2009 04:06 am Post subject:

Resin models of HMS Dreadnought in 1/350 (from Steel Navy) and 1/700 (from Combrig) scale are already available, so people who build in those scales already have what they want.

Us 1/600 ship builders want a 1/600 HMS Dreadnought to go with our other 1/600 ships! There must be a market for 1/600 ships as otherwise the current 1/600 ships would not be in the catalogue. A 1/700 model is also very small, 229 mm compared with 268 mm for 1/600.

The last 1/600 kit that Airfix issued was Queen Mary 2 in 2004. Before that was HMS Repulse in 1982.

Thanks for your vote Goggles! Now up to 70 votes.
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Brews · Posted: Fri 20 Feb 2009 23:21 pm Post subject:

What are the chances of this being a happening thing?
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Beaufighter · Posted: Sat 21 Feb 2009 01:43 am Post subject:

Zero?
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XN923 · Bronze Star Joined: 16 May 2008 Posts: 1176

That's a bit defeatist Beaufighter. Seems to me that pressure from modellers can have quite a bit of influence on what kitmakers produce - look at the TSR2 and McLaren F1 car. With a bit of concerted lobbying it could happen. Airfix needs to be sure that they can sell enough kits to make it worth their while, that's all. The return of Iron Duke 'by popular demand' suggests that there is enough interest in the dreadnought era and I'm willing to bet that a fair few people who want Iron Duke - or already own it - would want Dreadnought as well. It must be worth something as a reminder of a time when Britain led the world in quite a bit.

Beaufighter · Posted: Sun 22 Feb 2009 14:13 pm Post subject:

I think you are right with respect to the more popular subject areas, i.e. aircraft and anything with a swastika on it. I'm less sure with watercraft.

Ships, however, have lately been poor sellers. ICM's 1/350 Koenig flopped. 10 or 12 years ago WEM did a resin Hood in 1/350 scale that was nearly £1,000 and that flopped. To show that it's not just a price issue, ICM then did a plastic Hood in the same scale and that also flopped.

The only ship subjects that sell reliably are WW2 IJN and USN, and Bismarck. Even then, it's a minority interest within the hobby.

Iron Duke is a special case because the moulds already exist.

If Airfix said they'd do it on a syndicate basis - i.e. 500 people put in £1000 each and the result is a 1/600 release of Dreadnought - would you put your own money into it? I wouldn't.

As I suggested upthread, something may be possible if a new 1/600 WW1 kit were easily convertable / transmutable into another ship or several others. The best bet might be to produce a kit with the superstructure and weaponry done in such a way that if you care to carve your own hull, you can recycle those bits onto your hull to make a new ship.

Although, if you can do that, you can probably scratchbuild your own 1/600 Dreadnought quite easily!

If Airfix do go for more ships, I think a new 1/72 offering is the more likely. They have a good presence in this space already and the models are a nice display size without having hundreds of tiny parts to lose.

Meanwhile, when's the Free Enterprise getting reissued??
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Ratch · Posted: Sun 22 Feb 2009 15:14 pm Post subject: Scales

As much as I like to see large scale ships, they're not something I could make a collection of, due to the enormous display space they occupy

I suppose I prefer 1/600 as that is the scale I started with, is a comfortable size and can be displayed in numbers

But this brings another question

What about all those odd scales that other manufacturers seem to like

1:720 - 1:570 etc etc
Why is it that shipmakers have not settled on the equivalent of the one true scale

I do like my models to sit next to others in the same scale, to give a sense of comparative size

What do you guys reckon

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XN923 · Bronze Star Joined: 16 May 2008 Posts: 1176

But Trumpeter recently released a 1/350 and 1/700 Hood and they seem to have done well enough. Sure, the Koenig flopped, but German Dreadnoughts are hardly the biggest subject and the small number that ever did fire a shot in anger fired precious few, only at the Battle of Jutland, and didn't hit anything. My point about the Iron Duke was that the presence and reissue of this kit demonstrates that there is some appetite for kits of this era in this scale. Jutland and WW1 British Dreadnoughts are a phenomenally popular subject in book sales, and I don't see why this couldn't transfer to model kits if only there were enough to make a decent collection. And in any case I think Dreadnought could transcend interest in this particular era because of its significance. If marketed right in a way that was bound to national pride and 'Britannia rules the waves' it could sell plenty to the casual market. In many ways it's a 'Spitfire' or 'Lancaster' of ships.

No, I wouldn't pay £1000 to ensure a kit, but I would be prepared to put some money in and plenty of time to lobby/market if we could get organised enough to make it worthwhile.

I see your point about the convertability of kits - see my earlier post about the 13.5in armed classes of British Dreadnought. Airfix could possibly be quite canny here - given that several early Japanese Dreadnoughts were built in Britain, or to British designs, they could possibly tool up to allow some of these designs to be built as well. The Kongo class for example shared marked similarities with the Lion class, in hull at least. There may well be some early Japanese Dreadnoughts that shared considerable similarities with Dreadnought herself.

walrus · Posted: Sun 22 Feb 2009 16:22 pm Post subject:

Hi Ratch

i can't remember where i saw it recently

but...

Airfix apparently used 1/600 as that was the scale of the drawings used by the RN- which makes sense

overseas modelmakers obviously had other ideas/plans/resources- who knows- but they are all heretics

Flash Flash · Silver Star Joined: 16 May 2006 Posts: 2938

I like Revell's 1/570 I don't know why but I find them easier than Airfix ships

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Brews · Posted: Sun 22 Feb 2009 17:03 pm Post subject:

1:570 is close enough to 1:600, I think

I know what you mean, Heggy, Revell ships have pretty good fit.
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wookie · White Star Joined: 18 Jun 2006 Posts: 87 Location: Dorset

I, like many, was brought up on 1/60, and to me it seems a good compromise scale. I really cannot get on with smaller scales like 1/700 or 1/720 as even as a teenager that little bit smaller challenged both my eyesight and tweezer control.

I suppose I'm lucky in now being in a position to own a reasonably large house so i can build some display shelves to take the larger scales and have got the ex-Heller 1/400 KGV and Hood to build. But I'd much rather have a greater range of good quality models in 1/600.

I suppose it comes down to the same debate raging in the DREADNOUGHT thread. Scale warships just have never taken off with the same impetus that aircraft have. Hence, no one manufacturer was able to dominate and thus impose "their" scale. I think if anything we might see 1/350 becoming "the" standard scale of the future in the same way that 1/48 seems to be gaining interest over 1/72 for aircraft.

DavidM · Posted: Sun 22 Feb 2009 17:14 pm Post subject:

Are you sure that the ICM Hood ever achieved any real world existence?

Well, thanks to the Japanese the only viable smaller scale for ship modelling is 1/700 which is just about okay for me to manipulate, if not totally ideal, specially with the smaller ships like the V and W Class destroyers from Tamiya.

David
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Digs · Posted: Sun 22 Feb 2009 17:22 pm Post subject:

I've always thought of 1:600 as following on from the Brit 50' to the inch plans for wooden ship models that predated plastic kits during WWII and immediately after.

Does anybody recall who marketed these plans? (Or know what I'm referring to for that matter!

). I'd love to have another go at one.

Paul

Edit - rereading this, it's unclear. Wooden models of steel ships I mean. I remember building Scharnhorst, Hood and an oil tanker from the same series of plans