I can relate to what you just said, as it's as if it's all already written in stone with no way of changing things. That is why I like some cool concept / what-if vehicles, they let your imagination runs wild.

The other day I was at my LHS just browsing the shelves and I saw the Takom KV-5 soviet super heavy tank in 1/35 scale.

And I said to myself : AT LAST ! Someone has big enough cojones to put something new on the market besides an umpteenth variation on the Panzer III. 

One reason I try to build out of ordinary subjects, besides it just fun to build something different like a FW TA 183 of 189 or even a  Pzkpfw-VIII Maus.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the usual Tiger, P-51, Bf 109 Etc. but it just seems sad to know there will never be anything different than what has already passed. Kinda like 80's 90's music, that's all there is, the same ole songs over and over.

Hmmmmmmm, interesting post. I'm working on my uptenth Sherman right now but still I know how you feel. After playing World of Tanks for about a year or so some of the weird and wonderful prototypes, on-offs and oddball stuff piqued my interest. The American M6 heavy, the Soviet T-80 light amphibious tank (not to be confused with the current Russian MBT of course), and other less known hardware have their own interesting histories. Plus it started an interest in lesser known Cold War armour as well, I just ordered a JGSDF Type 74. Plus I've picked up most of FineMolds Imperial Japanese tank kits including the Type 5 prototype with the 88mm gun.

There's lots of odd stuff out there if you look for it!

I posted this once before, but there's a Facebook group that's called "Panzer 1946" that is based on "what-if" models of hypothetical tanks post-1946, if the Germans hadn't lost. There are some weird, wild, and even frankly ridiculous examples that are sometimes built and finished stunningly. Honestly, it's one of the most creative, and intimidating, places you can find.

One of my favorite tank kits as a child was the old Aurora MBT70. I recently bought the 1/35 scale German version of the tank by DML. It will be a nice change from the Abrams and Shermans I normally build.

I plan on building it as if it was the US version and placed into service in the 1970s and was successfully fielded throughout the Cold War.. There is a modern version of the "Panzer 46" based off of a bookshelf game called Twilight 2000. It takes place after WW3 where  NATO and the Warsaw Pact have fought a protracted war followed by a nuclear war. Survivors employ various post apocalypse vehicles.

In aircraft and armor, for WWII subjects, we are fairly well covered for items of the major powers that saw use beyond prototypes. At least in 1/35 armor and 1/48 aircraft. But when you go forward or back from there, or into different scales, the choices thin considerably. And of course there are still some rather serious gaps of significant items in those scales as well in WWII subjects. But if one moves into other era subjects, and then if one starts to build ships, the gaps increase dramatically for mainstream scale injection molded plastic subjects. But in recent years those gaps have slowly been starting to be filled.

There is a vast gulf between the aircraft that have been designed, built, and flown, but never kitted.  Usually only the popular and successful aircraft get kitted.  If you acquire scratchbuilding skills, you will have a lot more models to build.  That is one reason I often scratch a model- no kit offered.  Also, the materials costs are lower, so you can build those large scale models you cannot otherwise afford.

Yep, that's true, and I'll never live long enough to build all the subjects that are kitted.

What I'm saying is no one ever conceived of a P55 or B42. There is only a finite number of subjects, unless, like in my other post "what if?" you go back in time and conceive/build a new generation of aircraft, ships, tanks etc. then again, you will only have a finite number of subjects.

It may be my fascination with time, that what is past is past, and it can never be changed. Again you can watch a movie 2 or 3 times, pick out something you didn't notice before, but the end never changes, no matter how much you want, it's all you get.

It seems so...final to me. What is done is done, the past is never new.

Maybe I think to esoteric for my good.

I've thought of what it would be like to have all the modern day technology in the development stage for aircraft and armor built in WWII. How much faster could the P-51 have gone, etc. etc.? Then again, a lot of things were over engineered and benefited greatly from that.

"What I'm saying is no one ever conceived of a P55 or B42"

ModelCrazy, you need to hunt down three books, all on US subjects. I am sure there are something like them for other countries as well.

The P-55 was built as the Curtiss XP-55, the B-42 was built by Douglas.

So look for Llyod S Jones "US Fighters", "US Bombers" and "Navy Fighters", also look for the "American Combat Planes" by Ray Wagner.

In those books you will find that were very few gaps in the different series of US aircraft. If you mostly use websites, this one www.webring.org/.../rd  will give you a designation for each US aircraft ever built to a military contract, even things like all the different designations of the C-47 (the C-48, C-49, etc)

you will also see that the F-111 isn't the 111th aircraft in the series, there were more that didn't get a "P-number" or "F-number", and that the same is true for all the aircraft type series. (and two empty spots)

I hope you enjoy looking at this stuff

Rex

Thank you TarnShip, I'll check those out.

Well, there is a 1/48th scale kit of the XP-55 Ascender. It's Czechmodel so it's probably a bear to build. I've got one buried in my stash somewhere.

And an Anigrand kit of the XB-42 Mixmaster, probably an even rougher kit I'd expect.

Mike at Lone Star is working on a MixMaster kit for you 1/48 guys,,,,,I don't know where he is on it at this time, but, he has posted reports now and then on HS lately.

http://www.lonestarmodels.com/ (a great guy to deal with)

Rex

Project numbers in us services are generally consecutive. If there appear to be missing numbers, it is because the project was terminated before it reached a point where the public became aware of it.  That is, most likely cancelled while still on the drawing boards, or at least before the prototype build was finished.

Also, even with the same project number, often extensive changes to the prototype, or even multiple prototypes built in different configurations, so the number of planes actually built by US is far greater than what appear in books and such.  And, there were some really nice looking birds that were canceled while on the drawing boards :-(  Many of those books on experimental or prototype US designs barely scratch the surface.

there are a couple of spots where the numbers got skipped on purpose, without a project being proposed for the gaps, the P-73 and P-74 spots were skipped so that the Eagle could be P-75, Curtiss never proposed any F5C, that was skipped on purpose, etc.

as for kit availability, that depends on the scale,,,,,I leave it up to each modeler to propose a model that is not on this census of kits,,,,,,the "never kitted" types are rare,,,,,,this is 1/72 only (I don't know if anyone ever did a 1/48 site) www.72scale.com/menu.htm

But, even if you stick to one scale like I do, if you expand your scope when you finish a bunch of kits, you can model forever and never reach the "end" of our scale. A lack of kit production only comes up when you need to zero in on one certain version of an aircraft and no one has done one yet. Then you need to do what Don did with the Link Trainer,,,,,build your own without a kit.

Rex

That's why I got into paper. Saw the new plastic AT-6 in 1/32 scale and had to walk away because I will never mortgage the house for a model of anything.