Wojszwillo
Proff. Tilley, You wrote right things.
I want to add only one thing - at scale 1/50 or 1/64 detail, that is 0,2 mm thick (or 0,00787'') on scale model, represents 10 mm (0,394'') or 12,8 mm (0,504'') detail on "real ship". Wood grain on Revell models is represented on about 0,2 mm thick. And here is the question - can You imagine a 10 or 12,8 mm wood "garden-beds" on real wooden ship's deck etc?
I do not.
I don't think this point is worth getting into an ugly argument. But I will make a few points that, I think, are relevant and worth discussing.
First - the depth of the "wood grain" engraving on the Revell parts varies quite a big (as it should). I haven't measured it (I'm not sure how one would go about doing that accurately), but I question whether that figure of 0.2 mm is accurate for the kit in general.
Second - even if it is, 0.2 mm is a mighty small measurement. (For those of us who are accustomed to thinking in the English system - that's about 1/125 of an inch.)
Third - yes, the wood grain of some pieces of wood (depending on the species of wood, its condition, its age, etc.) does result in grooves, ridges, and depressed areas that measure close to the equivalent of what Revell shows. (Probably not half an inch, but certainly 1/8" and more.)
Fourth - any serious modeler who buys either of these kits surely will paint every visible part of it. Modern hobby paints can be applied in incredibly thin layers, but they do add to the thickness of the plastic. If the modeler applies any weathering techniques (I did a lot of dry-brushing on mine), the paint will be thicker. And when we're talking about as tiny dimensions as we are here, the thickness of the paint (to say nothing of any clear finish the modeler applies over it) is significant.
Fifth - and most important - in good, serious scale modeling visual impressions often matter at least as much as precise mathematical measurements. Some features of a real ship are simply too small to be represented accurately on the scale of a model. (What would be the accurate thickness of a sail on a 1/96-scale ship model? Would the edges of the copper bottom plating on a sailing ship really be visible if reduced to 1/200 actual size? How thick should the plating of the tub for a 20mm gun be on 1/700 scale? Or a flag - on practically any scale? For that matter - should there be visible grooves between the panels of a 1/72-scale airplane model?) The modeler, consciously or not, is constantly making judgments, not only about what the real object looked like, but also about how best to represent the real ship on the chosen scale.
And there's plenty of room for personal judgment and interpretation of such things. Personally, I don't like the appearance of "set sails" on models, except those on very small or very large scales. (In more than fifty years of modeling I have yet to see "set sails" on a model of a scale between about 1/200 and, say, 1/75 that have really impressed me. The late Donald McNarry came mighty close - but he himself said he'd never been "halfway satisfied" with his "set sails." Furled sails, in his opinion - and mine - are another matter entirely.)
Does that mean that no modeler should rig a model with set sails? Or that the 20mm gun tubs on a 1/700 battleship should necessarily be omitted? Or that manufacturers ought to stop putting engraved detail on aircraft kits? Of course not. That sort of thing, in my opinion, should always be up to the individual modeler. If it ever ceases to be so, I'll get out of the hobby.
The same goes for "wood grain" effects. In my opinion, it's entirely appropriate for the grain of the planks on a large-scale model of a Viking ship to be visible on close examination. I wouldn't suggest that it ought to be noticeable from across a room. But if a person studying the model carefully from a distance of a foot or so can detect the wood grain, the model, in my opinion, will look more like a Viking ship than if the surfaces of it are perfectly smooth.
I've seen quite a few different approaches to the "wood grain problem" in plastic kits. Most of them, to my eye, have been over-stated. Heller may be the worst offender in that regard - though its later kits, such as the 1/100 H.M.S. Victory, certainly were superior than the ones from a decade or two earlier. A comparison between early and more recent Revell kits is also instructive. (Compare the "wood grain" on the decks of the 1/96 Cutty Sark, from 1959, with that Viking ship, which was originally released in 1977. The "wood grain" of the Viking ship looks remarkably like what one finds in the excellent Imai kits from the same vintage. In fact I've wondered more than once if that's a coincidence.)
The longer I take part in this hobby, the more conscious I am that there are lots of "right" ways to do things. And as far as I'm concerned, the only person whose way is "wrong" is the one who thinks his way is the only "right" one.