1/25 vs 1/35 tanks

Welcome, scott540.   Generally speaking, I think that you'll find the widest selection of armor models in 1/35 in both kits to choose from and aftermarket goodies to play with if you so choose.   I haven't built any Academy armor, but Tamiya makes some well-engineered kits with easy-to-follow instructions that can be fully assembled in a weekend.   The only negative I can think of for 1/25 or larger armor is that it isn't as widely supported as 1/35 or smaller scales.

If this is your first armor model, then I recommend Tamiya over any other manufacturer for ease and enjoyment.  

I built the Academy 1/35 Tiger and thought it was a reasonable kit. Some of the mouldings aren't as sharp as a Tamiya version but it's still a pretty nice kit and didn't give me any major dramas building it. However I also believe some of the Academy 1/35 kits were designed to be motorised and so can be a bit toy like.

I've never tried 1/24 scale armour, it's way too big for my liking.

I agree with Dre a Tamiya kit will just fall together and they offer a wide range to chose from. Are you looking at Modern Armor or WWII?

Thanks everyone. I like the idea of the "bigness" of the 1/25 but seems like so much more out there and more compatible stuff for 1/35. I want to go with something WWII german armor.

Scott, as mentioned, 1/35 is more widely available and has a greater aftermarket as well. I think the size is perfect too.

Dragon is the biggest player these days, and the kits are loaded with parts. The one's I've built have gone together well without much fuss. Due to indy tracks, they may not be the best kits for you to break your teeth on, but sometimes going all in is the way to go.

If German armor is your thing then you should go check out Bill Plunks site see if any of his builds inspire you here's a link

www.bpmodels.net/.../viewforum.php

"Big" isn't necessarily better. Tamiya's 1/25 kits date back to the early-mid 70's and have simple detail and some dimensional issues. Academy's "1/25" kits are  Tamiclones and copies of Bandai's 1/24 kits from roughly the same period as the Tamiya kits. They are kinda fun though.

Hello!

If anybody wanted to build 1:25 armour, thare's a very wide selection of paper models to chose from - companies like GPM and Fly Model all do a lot of interesting stuff. Recently I've seen a paper model of a Tiger from the GPM company, with complete interior and Zimmerit structure factory-impressed in paper - that looked just awesome. Recently they started selling laser-cut parts for those models, to decrease the workload needed to build them.

http://www.gpm.pl/eng/index.php

Thanks for reading, have a nice day

Paweł

Not much in the way of 1/25 or 1/24 armor. The largest selection is 1/35 by far. The old Bandai 1/24 King Tiger and Jagdpanther still pop up now and then on ebay but not at cheap prices. I built both years ago and they had complete interiors. I sold off the Tiger years ago but still have the Jagdpanther which I'm redoing the complete interior to make it more accurate. Academy has the Panther and Jagdpanther out in 1/25 and Aber makes PE detail sets for them. I have the Academy Panther with the Aber PE and obtained some Tamiya 1/25 link Jagdpanther track to replace Academy's rubber band tracks. At 1/25 scale, the detail is a bit easier to scratch out and handle.

Welcome to the dark side! Honestly, scale preference really comes down to how much space you have to store the completed model. There are less kits in 1/25 or 1/24 scale, though.

wait, they have armor in 1/25 scale?!!? i was surprised to find aircraft in 1/24, so i snapped up a big scale Mustang (big beautiful doll. btw, i was surprised to find out that aircraft crashed and was totally destroyed last year)

I'm thinking 1/25 wins the battle.