- The Airfix Tribute Forum -

VMA131Marine

The Dreadnought campaign thread got me thinking that there are a lot of ships, and RN ships in particular, that have not been kitted in plastic in any scale. What subjects would you like to see from Airfix in the future, assuming they stick to 1/600 as the scale of choice?

Here's my list

Centaur class aircraft carrier (Centaur, Albion, Bulwark, Hermes)

HMS Ark Royal (IV) (R09) - Audacious class aircraft carrier

Revenge class battleship - (Revenge · Royal Sovereign · Ramillies · Resolution · Royal Oak) - there's an old Frog kit in approx 1/500 scale but it would be nice to have a kit in plastic and compatible with the rest of the Airfix ship line-up. Hopefully it would be tooled so that all the ships in the class could be modeled and at different stages in their service lives. I would especially like to be able to do Royal Oak as she looked at the time of her sinking.

HMS Lion (also Queen Mary and Princess Royal) - Adm Beatty's flagship at Jutland where he famously said "Chatfield, there seems to be something wrong with our very ships today."

HMS Exeter - York class heavy cruiser
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Brews · Posted: Sun 14 Oct 2007 07:42 am Post subject:

I would like to see new tools of Ajax/Achilles and Modified Leanders (e.g. Sydney). The existing Ajax is showing its age, and most of the details are a bit soft. OTOH the WEM PE set dresses it up nicely, and WEM resin 4.1" AA are a treat.

Also, it's not a big deal for Airfix to make the necessary tooling changes to transform the Leanders into Yorks, the biggest items being the 8" armament.

New tool County class cruisers, depicting wartime Cumberland, Suffolk and Norfolk would be nice.

Illustrious, Victorious, Eagle, Hermes, Courageous and Glorious (starting to sound like an anthem!)

New Rodney, Bismarck/ Tirpitz, Hipper ... and Jutland fleets.
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Digs · Posted: Sun 14 Oct 2007 11:26 am Post subject:

I would love to see one of the WWII RN anti-aircraft cruisers - the ones with the three front high angle turrets - Dido class? Can't remember the names off hand and the reference books are not at hand.

Paul

Ratch · Posted: Sun 14 Oct 2007 11:32 am Post subject:

An RN escort carrier would be nice

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DavidH · Posted: Sun 14 Oct 2007 15:07 pm Post subject:

Battlecruisers & Battleships from the Grand & High Seas Fleet's. 1/600th would be ideal as it would scale in with the HMS Iron Duke.

Other than the odd kit & 1/700th resin, the First World War has been pretty much neglected so hopefully they would sell well.

VMA131Marine · Posted: Sun 14 Oct 2007 20:24 pm Post subject:

And I forgot one:

HMS Vanguard - last RN battleship
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Steven Pietrobon · Posted: Mon 15 Oct 2007 05:29 am Post subject:

Of the 23 British Dreadnought Battleship and Battlecruiser classes, Airfix have done six; Iron Duke (1912), Queen Elizabeth (1913), Hood (1918), Renown (1916), Nelson (1925) and King George V (1939). Left to do are

Dreadnought (1906), Bellerophon (1907), St. Vincent (1908) 10x12"
Invinciple (1907) 8x12"
Neptune (1909), Colossus (1910) 10x12"
Indefatigable (1909) 8x12"
Orion (1910), King George V (1911), Erin (1913) 10x13.5"
Lion (1910), Queen Mary (1912), Tiger (1913) 8x13.5"
Revenge (1914) 8x15"
Agincourt (1913) 14x12"
Canada (1913) 10x14"
Vanguard (1944) 8x15"

Although not proper Dreadnought Battleships, these ships are are interesting.

Courageous (1916) 4x15"
Furious (1916) 1x18"

I would of course like to see HMS Dreadnought done first, followed by HMS Vanguard as bookends to this fleet. Classes that could be left out are Revenge (similar to Queen Elizabeth) and Orion, King George V (1911) and Erin (similar to Iron Duke).

Of the 13 German classes, Airfix have done three; Bismarck (1939), Scharnorst (1936) and Deutschland (1931). Left to do are

Nassau (1908) 12x11", 12x5.9", 16x3.45"
Vander Tann (1909) 8x11", 10x5.9", 16x3.45"
Helgoland (1909) 12x12", 14x5.9", 14x3.45"
Molteke (1910), Seydlitz (1912) 10x11", 12x5.9", 12x3.45"
Kaiser (1911) 10x12", 14x5.9", 10x3.45"
Derflinger (1913) 8x12", 12x5.9", 4x3.45"
Hindenburg (1913) 8x12", 14x5.9", 4x3.45"
Koenig (1913) 10x12", 14x5.9", 10x4.45"
Bayern (1915) 8x15", 16x5.9", 8x3.45"
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VMA131Marine · Posted: Mon 15 Oct 2007 05:49 am Post subject:

DavidH · Posted: Mon 15 Oct 2007 07:39 am Post subject:

The Queen Elizabeth Class kit depicts Warspite after her 1930's reconstruction. I would like to see a Jutland era version released. It would be a mission & a half to backdate the Airfix Warspite to this era.

DavidM · Posted: Mon 15 Oct 2007 09:20 am Post subject:

Burn me for heresy, but I'd like to see Airfix switch over to 1/700 for any new ships. And in the interim get hold of Matchbox's RN moulds from Revell AG. I never did build their HMS Exeter and it's only been reissued since being bought by Revell by a Russian company for sale in Eastern Europe.

After that the field is pretty much wide-open, among those I'd like to see are HMS Furious in its 30s carrier incarnation, WW1 battlecruisers like Lion and Tiger and coming up to date a Type 23.

David
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peebeep · Guest

DavidM · Posted: Mon 15 Oct 2007 10:15 am Post subject:

Wicker man - the old ways are sometimes still the best

Really I'd like a Furious 3 in 1 with the inital flight deck (and the terrifying dazzle scheme

) the 30s version with short upper deck and the final version for WW2.

SWMBO's late father was a stoker on Furious in the late 30s and ages ago I did him a selection of the Skytrex ships showing the evolution of the Furious. What fun it was to cut the 1/3000 scale Swordfish off their bases to stick on the flight decks....

David
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Ratch · Posted: Mon 15 Oct 2007 10:17 am Post subject:

Beaufighter · Posted: Mon 15 Oct 2007 11:09 am Post subject:

I'd vote for any WW1 subject with an unusual turret configuration. The 4 x twin and 3 x triple have been done to death. Iron Duke is interesting because she has five twins rather than the usual four, and as a result she screams "World War One" at you.

My preference would be for an Invincible or better yet Indefatigable, because the latter has the wing-turret-firing-across-the-deck configuration. These would produce quite small models though, about the size of Graf Spee (whose design constraints produced something that in many respects - speed, battery, armour - was in effect a WW1 British battlecruiser).

Alternatively, Agincourt's seven turrets would be fun to build.

Any German WW1 subject would be a nice change. For reasons of looks plus wing turrets, I'd like Seydlitz, but a better bet might be Moltke. She could be marketed as either her at Jutland or as Goeben in the Mediterranean. In the latter case, I'd like an extra sprue containing parts to build that light cruiser (Breslau?) she escaped to Istanbul with.

I doubt any of these will happen. One the one hand, ICM made a 1/350 König a few years ago, and it flopped AIUI. So the appetite for WW1 subjects may not be all that great. On the other, eBay prices for the existing 1/600 range are pretty strong. I'd buy all the WW1 convertibles if re-released. I like groups of subjects. Hood, Repulse, Warspite, and Iron Duke all retrofitted to WW1 would look good and better still with more WW1 types in the lineup.

Commodore Rob · Posted: Mon 15 Oct 2007 12:47 pm Post subject:

Richard M · Posted: Mon 15 Oct 2007 13:14 pm Post subject:

Don't forget 1/72 for the ickle boats!

I thought 1/350 was pretty standard for most manufacturers for the big ships and destroyers?
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Rich
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DavidH · Posted: Mon 15 Oct 2007 17:47 pm Post subject:

I think that ICM's Konig flopped more down to choice of subject than lack of interest in WW1. If they wanted to do something from the High Seas Fleet, I would have thought that from a sales point of view, the Seydlitz would have been a better choice. If they had gone Royal Navy, I would have thought that the Warspite, Lion and Queen Mary would have all been better sellers.

Not that there is anything wrong with the Konig kit, I have one on the go at the moment & it is very nice.

As for Airfix & scales. I accept the argument that 1/700th is pretty much the industry standard now, but seeing as they have made such a committment to 1/600th, I would like to see them stay there. Comparing Airfix's 1/600th Hood or KGV to Tamiya's 1/700th offerring, the size of the Airfix one is much nicer IMO. If they tooled anything bigger, I would hope that they went for 1/350th. How about some WW2 RN Cruisers in that scale? Yum Yum.

Spudgun · Posted: Mon 15 Oct 2007 18:41 pm Post subject:

I quite like the 1/600 scale. It's small enough to put on a shelf and it's big enough to get the finer detail on. Anyhoo, I'd go for:

HMS Warspite in her Jutland configuration.
HMS Furious (I really like the 3 in 1 suggestion)
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Sailorman · Green Star Joined: 22 Apr 2006 Posts: 335 Location: Malta

Stop wishing and start scratchbuilding. ........ it really isn't all that difficult!

1:600 HMS Sheffield

USS Spruance 1:600

or the SS Ohio:

You can build ANYTHING you want to!

Beaufighter · Posted: Tue 16 Oct 2007 11:09 am Post subject:

I think my first choice for WW1 would be any subject that looks distinctively WW1. This argues strongly for anything with wing turrets.

The problem really is that Airfix has a legacy of arguably obsolescent scales. 1/700 came in during the 1960s, when 4 big Japanese manufacturers agreed to share out subjects amongst themselves so as to kit the entire WW2 IJN. That's where 1/700's dominance came from.

1/600 will not appeal nowadays to anyone who is invested in 1/700, but then again, the overwhelming majority of 1/700 subjects are obscure WW2 IJN vessels, with a smattering of US, UK, and German items. 1/600 is I think a better scale for WW1 vessels, not least because the actual ships were smaller.