HMS Repulse

Repulse1941

Did I read somewhere here that the venerable old Airfix Repulse is gone forever?

Where to? I have seen the Singapore-based outfit who did a FROG reboxing a couple of years ago but these seem to have dried up completely. Has the mould been sold? Lost? Destroyed? Mothballed under contract terms?

A note about prices - Tamiya's 1/700 Repulse has a RRP of some £34+p&p if you shop at the wrong internet outlet!

And have you seen how much Dragon are asking for their new USN destroyer kits? Nearly fifty squid for a 1/350 destroyer!!!!!

Trumpeter and Academy have just announced a Graf Spee in 1/350, and Trumpeter has also announced a 1/350 Prinz Eugen.
A guesstimate of RRP for these is in the region of £60UKS each.

Academy's Graf Spee may well come in under half that, judging by the price they are asking for their newish 1/350 Perry Class frigate.

A 1/700 HMS Renown is on the way from Pit Road and will most likely retail in a Trumpeter box too.

Trumpeter have also been rumoured to be releasing a 1/350 HMS Nelson or Rodney sometime next year.

Who knows - a 1/350 WW2 Ark Royal might follow too.

Since the Chinese and the Japanese share an uneasy history, it seems that the current IJN fad is only enjoyed by the Japanese companies. Not one WW2 IJN subject has been produced by a Chinese kitmaker to date IIRC.

I think 1/400 & 1/600 are finished. I have just bought Trumpeter's new 1/350 scale HMS Repulse kit and it is supurb.

Like it or not, 1/700 (too small for me) & 1/350 are the future.
However, I do believe that 1/72 has a valid place. Revell must have sold thousands of their 1/72 U boat kits for example.

Steven Pietrobon

Airfix should still have the HMS Repulse tool, since it was last used in the Frog reissue. I have not heard of the tool being lost.

Repulse1941

Beaufigter wrote on page 2:

The range of 1/600 WW1 battleships available from Airfix is essentially four - Iron Duke, Warspite, Repulse, and Hood (just!).

This is not a bad total in fact, but Repulse has gone, so we're down to three,

I wondered where Repulse has gone when I read this.

Perhaps someone might know what happened to the mould?

Paddy O'Irishman

Warspite and Iron Duke are due out later this year, that is confirmed, moduni.de lists them as December release for Iron Duke and August for Warspite, (they also list the 1/350 Illustrious as a December release,, Santa's goona be busy this xmas I think) Hood is available now and word on the grapevine is Repulse will be re-issued along with KGV and Scharnhorst, possibly some time next year, although that is not official, but it would make sense, Victorious was recently re issued and apparently selling well, so there is no reason not to expect Repulse to put in an appearence, especially as she was probably the best of the 1/600 Warships as far as quality and fit goes. Who knows, maybe Graff Spee and Prinz Eugon could be in the pipeline as well. Even though the Airfix ships are not on a par with current Japanese 1/700 warships, there way cheaper, plus dont forget, a whole generation or two, grew up on the Airfix ships and will continue to buy them, due to them being the only affordable RN and DKM ships in small scale, plus, we all love them, and most of the old favourites are back in production, Ark Royal, The Falklands ships, Suffolk etc so I think 1/600 will be around for a while yet.

T16S

As for 1:600 being finished - I think not. The things that can be done with this range are incredible- see Remy's posts.
It would be nice to see repulse and KGV back. Plus of course they will still sell well because the opposition are so expensive!
cheers Stuart

orionv

Yes and for me the 600ème is better than the 700,we can made more accurates details .The size of the model is a little bigger.For example, for the Spee, the difference is about 5 cm which is not negligible... it is a pitty that this scale was not more developed .
See you soon on the Ark royal build( i am always waiting for the Wem stuff)....

Amitiés Rémy
Ps: Prinz eugen started (the hull)

Stand by on the Hunt class destroyer ,black swann and river corvet...

DJBlackburn

...and before anyone gets too chuffed over the Trumpeter kit, be well aware this model bears the same defects that have plagued nearly all previous "1941" kits (including the Airfix/Frog kit).

If you want an accurate 1941 version, there is work to be done in several areas, much of which involves the superstructure abaft the catapult break.

Not one single mass producer has yet kitted a model of the 1941 Repulse in its correct configuration, and the new Trumpeter is no exception. It would almost be easier to retrodate the model to depict the ship in an earlier year (1936-38), than to accurize it for an as-sunk 1941 appearance.

Repulse1941

To be fair to Trumpeter, there is no definitive consensus amongst the self-appointed pundits as to what was Repulse's final configuration actually was.

The number of, and siting of AA weapons, the shades of grey/black paint are just a couple of vague areas which lack clarification.

There are of course, a couple of minor discrepancies concerning the after deck housing sizes and shapes, but these are being addressed by Admiralty Modelworks via the provision of resin accessories.

To me, the kit is 'Good Enough' in it's present guise, and is after all, the only 1/350 game in town.

Paddy O'Irishman

All model kits have their faults,after all they are for the most part, small replica's of the real ships, and unfortunately, most of the real ships are sadly long gone. During the War, ships were being updated, refittted, modernised constantly and not all of these changes were documented so it's understandable if a model has some faults. As modellers, we need to decide if a particular kit, regardless of faults, represents value for money and are we prepared to spend the extra money correcting those faults, or are we happy with the model "as is". Despite it's faults, the Trumpy Repulse is a decent model as are most of there big ship kits, their 1/350 Hood is widely accepted as the best model of Hood to date, and no doubt the same will be said for Repulse. If you want to go better, then you have to go resin, but then the prices start getting really stupid. Roughly 90 quid for plastic, the same in resin would be 250, 300 quid upwards, thats a lot of money, and thats without P/E etc, You could get the Trumpy Repulse with all the P/E, brass barrels etc for about half the price of just the basic resin equivilent. The price is one of the major factors at play when deciding if an individual thinks a model is good or not. I for one intend to get the Trumpy Repulse a.s.a.p, warts and all, because for me personally, just the fact that I can have a 1/350 Repulse sitting on my shelf, at an affordable price, makes it a very good model for me, whereas others would not think it a good model because whatever is lacking in that kit that they are looking for, makes it a bad model for them. Trumpy's Repulse means different things to different people, if it floats your boat, great, if it dont, no worries.