Highest Quality Military Models

Marcus McBean

I agee about the ships by Dragon.  I am building the Scharnhorst and she is going together very nice and looks great.  I only wish the instructions were better.

 

My god man, pics! We need pics!!

I agee about the ships by Dragon.  I am building the Scharnhorst and she is going together very nice and looks great.  I only wish the instructions were better.

Most of the Dragon ship kits are excellent, as well. The Gleaves-class destroyers, on both 1/350 and 1/700 scales, are superb. I haven't seen the Scharnhorst or the German destroyers, but I hear they're just as good.

Some of the Trumpeter kits are good; others not so much so. Trumpeter's USS The Sullivans is widely regarded as a dud. But I'll stick my neck out and say that the Trumpeter HMS Dreadnought is the best plastic warship kit I've ever seen (though I don't claim to have seen anywhere near all of them).

I have exactly one armor kit in my stash: the Dragon M4A3E8 Sherman. To my inexperienced eyes it's mind-bogglingly good; until I opened that box I wouldn't have imagined that so many parts could be crammed into one little tank. But the experts seem to think the Tasca Sherman is even better - and I'm not competent to argue with them.

We need to remember that most of these companies have been in business for quite a few years. Generally speaking - with plenty of exceptions - they get better as they go along. But some of the kits on the market are quite old. An example that sticks out is the Revell 1/540 USS Missouri. It's in the Revell catalogue today; it was originally issued in 1954, as Revell's very first ship model. By modern standards it's a slightly amusing piece of junk. On the other hand, some of the recent ship kits from Revell Germany are superb. And some of them are reboxings of Zvezda kits.

We now have available to us a resource that didn't exist when I started building models sixty years ago: the Web. Nowadays I rarely buy a kit without first googling "Tamiya uss whatever review." there seem to be literally thousands of kit reviews out there.

For ships I would agree Tamiya and Trumpeter.  However, the very latest ship kits from Zvezda are getting close to the same quality and Revell Germany, though a mixed bag, has put out a few gems, like the Emden WW1 cruiser and their container ship.

Like Stik says, it depends on what subject you want to model. It also depends on what you consider to be top quality.

For some, quality is accuracy, down to the number of bolt heads on a sprocket and cast metal texture. To others, quality is a finely engineered kit that builds beautifully and easily. Some people may think quality is a massive amount of miniscule parts that include photo etched parts, aluminum barrels and extra pieces like that.

If you want a WW2 Japanese Imperial Army armor kit, Fine Molds is the tops. A high quality M1A2 Abrams with all the recent upgrades, you'd look for the Meng kit. As previously noted, you want some version of a Sherman, Tasca/Asuka are the kits to get. Want the best Chaffee or Jeep, head to Bronco.

The list goes on and on.

It all depends on your scale and subject area preference. If you want 1/35 Cold War or current era Western AFVs, Meng, AFV Club, Takom, and Hobby Boss are making the excellent kits in those areas. For 1/35 post WWII Soviet & Russian subjects, Trumpeter is king of the hill. 1/35 WWI armor is dominated by Meng. For 1/35 Shermans Taska/Asuka is THE best of the lot. For anything WWII in German markings in 1/35, Dragon offers the biggest selection and most detailed kits. But if French or British WWII 1/35 subjects is your choice, Tamiya, Bronco, and Trumpeter are your go to companies. So really there is no "one size fits all" answer.

Dragon, Trumpeter, some newer Tamiya

Dragon...

 Just about every company has good kits and terrible ones.  It depends on the subject which kit is better than the others.