List of 1/350-1/400 styrene kits of 1890-1922 period warships

I can add a few styrene kits to the list - which, in any case, is depressingly short.

Airfix's 1/600 Iron Duke is in most respects a nice kit - particularly in few of its age.  It originally appeared in the late 1960s, I believe; I think it's on the list of kits the company intends to re-release in the near future.  It represents the ship more or less as she appeared right after World War I.  A few minutes correcting the major errors (deleting a spurious casemate gun and removing the mysterious donuts on the barrels of the secondary armament, for instance) and the addition of some photo-etched details (White Ensign Models offers an outstanding set dedicated to the kit) could turn it into a first-rate model.

Airfix also made a 1/600 Warspite, but it's in World War II configuration.  And there are quite a few additional H.M.S. Hood kits.  And Airfix, Tamiya, and Trumpeter offer versions of H.M.S. Repulse.

A long time ago Frog made a 1/500 H.M.S. Revenge.  It's been reissued several times under other labels (e.g., Novo).  It sticks in my mind that it showed up fairly recently under some other label, but my memory's shaky about that one.  I haven't seen the kit for years, but my vague recollection is that it represented the ship in her inter-war configuration.  (The R class ships didn't get as heavily modified as the Queen Elizabeth class did.)  As I recall it was a pretty basic kit, but the overall shapes were about right.

Revell released a four-stack, flush-decked destroyer in 1960, under the name U.S.S. Buchanan.  The scale (according to Dr. Graham's book) was about 1/240.  It's been reissued many times; I don't think it's on the market at the moment, but it shouldn't be hard to find.  It represents the famous "four-stack" class more or less as they were built (even in its incarnation in a box labeled "H.M.S. Campbletown" - despite the fact that the British modified that ship almost beyond recognition for the raid on St. Nazaire).  The kit suffers from one rather gross error:  some designer spent a good deal of time putting raised lines representing "wood planks" on the decks.  (The real ships, of course, had steel decks.)  Otherwise it's a good kit for its time - and certainly capable of serving as the basis for a fine scale model.  Gold Medal Models offers a dedicated set of photo-etched detail parts for it.

Since Kapudan's list includes World War I-vintage ships in highly-modified World War II configurations, I guess Tamiya's recent 1/700 "V & W"-class destroyer ( http://www.squadron.com/ItemDetails.asp?item=TM31910 ) qualifies.  Converting it to WWI configuration would be an interesting project.  I wonder if any of the aftermarket companies has considered a conversion kit.

This is an area where there are lots of gaping holes in the available product list.  That's a shame.  Apart from the fact that so many good-looking and interesting ships date from that period, it could easily be argued that those decades saw warship design and construction play a bigger role in world affairs than any other period in history.

jtilley wrote:

This is an area where there are lots of gaping holes in the available product list.  That's a shame.  Apart from the fact that so many good-looking and interesting ships date from that period, it could easily be argued that those decades saw warship design and construction play a bigger role in world affairs than any other period in history.

Nothing can be more true professor. As Lawrence Sondhaus shows in his splendid Naval Warfare 1815-1914 (and as I also defended in my thesis) in the period between the Berlin Conference of 1885 and the Washington Naval Treaties of 1922, naval power was THE main arbiter of world power for the first time in history. Even the large terrestrial empires of Russia and China felt compelled to construct seagoing fleets instead of their traditional coast defense mentality. What today are ICBMs and nuclear bombs, were the armorclad battleships with long range artillery in those days. Therefater, as John Buckley says in his equally impressive study Air Power in the Age of Total War, "navies and armies fought a desperate rearguard action against airpower". Ironically, most of the kits which fill the market now are exactly from this "eclipse" period of major surface fleets. I also share your view about aesthetics of marine engineering during the period I tried to cover in my list. The flash and flair of early torpedo-boats, early destroyers; graceful lines of period cruisers or the imposing view of battleship rows is uniquely captivating and idiosyncratic to the era.

Personally, I would even consider financially contributing to the modelling industry somehow if I would see some real hope for a SMS Goeben, SMS Schleswig-Holstein, the immortal U-9 and any Grand Fleet dreadnought or battlecruiser which participated to Jutland (especially one of the "splendid cats" or HMS Iron Duke) in the best-compromise scale of 1/350.

I read your thesis Emir and passed it along to my wife, who is working on hers, something to do with Heidegger and religious art.

Along the lines of what's been said- this era in steel ship design might be compared to aircraft in the 20's or computers in the 80's.

I made a mistake in my earlier post in this thread.  I was typing too late at night for my own good (I'm probably making the same mistake right now), and didn't notice the words "1/350-1/400" in the title line.  None of the kits I mentioned is, of course, in either of those scales.  Sorry about that.

The irony is that Kapudan's original list comes close to including all the kits of the period 1890-1922 in any scale.

I did think of a few more:  the old 1/74-scale ITC/Glencoe American subchaser and the small series of excellent 1/700-scale Japanese warships of the Russo-Japanese War from Sealsmodel.

I hope you had a favorable impression about my thesis Bondoman, and that it provided you an interesting reading. I hope your wife similarly will enjoy it, although she works on a totally unconnected discipline

Professor, your additions only enriched and completed my original text as always, I thank you for that. I also further can add that the 1/400 Avrora shall be converted into her sister Diana which played a far more active part in the Baltic Campaigns of the Great War, or to the third unit of the class Pallada, which played a considerable role in the Russo-Japanese War as part of Russian Far Eastern Fleet. From 1904 to 1918 all three units of Diana class crusiers showed very serious differences in fit and armament, thus conversions of Avrora may provide interesting projects. Ah, and of course there is the extra possibility of further converting her into Tsugaru, as her sister Pallada served under Japanese flag until 1920.

I read where someone created an SMS Konigsberg from the Emden.

Some rework but hull lines, dims, are the same. Correct?

Flagman of Russia has several really great styrene projects planned, including 1/350 kits of Rurik I, Askold, and several Boiki class destroyers.

 I prefer 1/700 myself, but Rurik would be an irresistable subject in 1/350; here's to hoping.

Felix is quite right about converting the Emden into any Königsberg class light cruiser. Königsberg class (the name ship, Stettin, Stuttgart and Nürnberg) had the same hull with Emden class, only difference being uneven funnel spacing and longer bridge. In fact I'm surprised why an aftermarket company still is not offering a conversion set.

I consciously excluded resin kits from my list just out of my personal hatred for this material  Joke aside, there is a far bigger selection of resin kits for that period in 1/350-1/400 range so they ought to have a separate list I think.

Flagman has of course these mouth watering projects on its webpage as "coming soon" but that "coming soon" exceeds more than a year and I'm losing my hopes to ever see them in the market.

Emir,

I do not wish to appear as a spokesman for any particular company but consider some of the 1/350 resin kits from this area are as inexpensive as the Mikasa for the same type of ship and they already include PE.

Consider if you purchase the Kasuga or Nisshin you could build any class of the Garibaldi cruisers- IJN, Spanish, Argentine, Italian, one more, well you see. The cost is about the same as the Mikasa and PE is included.

On this you are also so right Felix. Besides, what you say is certainly not advertising; you give correct advice to modelers who are already short of selections.

And thanks for reminding Kasuga and Nisshin ! These kits are superb bargain as you say, offering such a wide range of conversions. The fact that I stay away from resin is not because of price tags but rather due to my own incompetence in assembling kits. I'm into this hobby for more than 15 years but to my shame, I only reached to the level of just properly cleaning and putting the plastic parts in proper fit and symmetry so far. I just once tried to make a resin kit and it was such a dismal failure that I swore not to touch it again. I will try a few 1/350 early submarines though, as they don't have more than 5 parts in general.

Wouldn't you like to prepare a list of 1/350 resin kits for this same period of history ? It would be great addition to the forum.

Maybe I did oversee this in the discussion, but the Russian brand ICM has 3 German WW1 warships in the assortement.

König

Grosser Kürfurst

Marktgraf

My experience with ICM is that the models are very detailed and have a good fit.

Paul