New model survey-1/350 scale ships

Ever read Don Quiote? :-) This is the ultimate in jousting windmills.

There have been literally dozens of threads trying to accomplish the exact same thing. It usually ends up with people arguing with each other over why THEIR ship is better than YOUR ship...etc. etc.

We should all just be thankful we're getting new kits, period. In the last 24 months, more new 1/350 plastic kits have been released than in the last 24 years.

What kinda bothers me, (and it's not you Sgt.Mac), is that it just doesn't seem to matter what new kits are out there, we always want something else and more of it. Even though Lex, NC, Essex, Hornet, are all out there, people are still complaining they don't have the USS Ad Nauseum in plastic yet.

As of right now, I have 4 carriers, 2 battleships, a modern Russian cruiser (Sovermenny), that are brand new, in the box. I've got another 25-30 ship kits in resin. Is the release of a new kit (even one that I really want) going to effect my schedule? It may move things around a bit, but I certainly have enough to keep myself quite busy for some time, with subjects that I've waited a long time for.

I think that's true for all of us. Rather than pestering the manufacturers with lists and petitions, let's just build what we have already, and what's new on the market. Something on your list of 'must-have' kits will appear eventually.

They already know what we want, trust me. They also know that they must choose subjects that will sell. If they have a choice between a Cleveland class cruiser and Van Der Tann, guess what? Cleveland wins. That's the financial/logistical aspect of this business. They don't build what we want, they build what will sell. If the two happen to be one and the same, great. But no matter what you release, someone isn't going to be happy.

I want HMS Hood, IJN Takao, and a New Orleans class cruiser. That may not be what you want...but the question is, in the grand scheme of things, what will sell better, what you want, or what I want? Hood will sell, Takao probably won't, and New Orleans has potential, but there's quite a few more subjects that have to come first.

Having been in this business for some time, asking for a Cleveland, or a Fletcher, or an Atlanta, San Francisco, or one of the Pearl Harbor battleships makes sense. Why? Because there were 29 Clevelands built, 175 Fletchers, 11 Atlantas, 7 New Orleans class, etc. That opens up the marketing possibilities, and offers much more sales potential. Something else to consider is the individual ship itself. Atlanta and Juneau would be popular, but would Flint and Reno?? Probably not. How about Indianapolis? Sure...Portland? Probably not, even though they're sister ships.

The kits they release either have to be famous, with name recognition, or there has to be enough of them in the class to cover a large number of subjects. Everyone can argue about what ship is famous and what isn't...I can give you 10 reason why we should see HMS Warspite before we see USS SoDak. But it's not going to happen that way. Sadly, most of our 'favorite ships' are pretty far down on the pecking order. Some may right up there, but chances are, we're all going to have to wait for that #1 kit on our list. In the meantime, I'm going to fondle Lady Lex for awhile.

As usual, it's almost 2am and I'm babbling again.

Jeff

Jeff - You're not alone. My excuse is pizza with pepperoni and onion, followed by h-e-a-r-t-b-u-r-n....

Certainly it may seem that manufacturers only make what they think will give them a profit, but there are many cases made that marketing people drop the ball all the time on what sells- for example look at the difference between the Chrysler PT Cruiser and the Pontiac Aztec(1:1). Neither manufacturer predicted what the public wanted to buy, with Chrysler smiling all the way to the bank and Pontiac dropping its creation for lack of almost any sales.

I think that with the great resurgence in new kit manufacturing going on the past few years, it opens up all kinds of nice things for all modelers as each company tries to find subjects to market-which I think is exactly why some gentle prodding and wishfull thinking can help influence what comes next. Personally, I think its great whichever ship gets launched next and will probably buy one just so I know I have one, whether or not I plan to build it(one of my 70 year old friends buys every 72nd scale aircraft made any where-he has about 11,000 kits in storage, just in case he lives to be a hundred and fifty).

I'll take one of every ship listed on everybody's wish list and I'll come up with some more..........

I think we're all in the same boat, literally and figuratively.

Jeff

Jeff, you are certainly correct about market pressures. Producing, advertising and distributing model kits is an expensive enterprise and the manufacturers ... big and small alike, have to bend to the will of the buyers and make kits that will earn a profit after paying production costs. And with the defense contractors trying to horn in on the money, the game will get harder and harder to win.

We're fortunate in that many smaller companies will make limited-run multi-media kits that they sell to "uber-fans" like us. And the internet now allows us to scan foreign markets for our particular obsession of the moment. Indeed, the glass is half full, if not three-quarters or more.

And you are right about building what we have already. Like most of our forum members, I have a closet full of unbuilt kits that I just had to have when they were first acquired. Sage advice, my Man ... fill in the gaps by building a few of those. And I have two Von der Tanns already ... 1:1250 in lead and 1:200 in card stock ... plus Seydlitz, Konig and Derrflinger in different scales.

I need to get crackin' on those ....

I agree with you Jeff,most of what model companies put in to production are ships that have a hight name reconiction on T.V. or history books.mostly these ships are allways on the tip of our tounges.Very few other ships get mention or not even talked about,I too would like to see other ships made in injected molds,it would be cheaper for us.I guess that I will have to brake down one day and buy the U.S.S.San Francisco in resin.Due to the way model companies do there bussniess,I really can't blame them for this.If you can't sell them,then why make them,Digger.

Well I heard a rumor that Yankee Modelworks was doing a SSN 597 Tullibee. This will be nice. It's great to see companies doing a "one of a Class " model. Now how about a SSN 23 Jimmy Carter and a Parche SSN 683. The Parche is the most decorated US Submarine ever and a nice resin kit would sell quick...

The thing is; Tamiya don't seem to have any compunctions about producing and releasing obscure WW2 IJN subjects which many have never heard of.
Surely these are not cash-cows for the company, wheras a 1/350 Hood would be, yet one of these has yet to appear.

Or maybe my mkt research is way off beam?
Resin kits, despite the higher costs and an allegedly higher level of detail, always look like roughly hewn chunks of chedder cheese to me - I'd much prefer injected kits any day.

Not keen on resin at all.

Warshipbuilder,
Tamiya sells the heck out of those kits in Japan, where the ships are revered and loved. What we get are English-language spinoffs that just beef up their sales by a few thousand more.

And the Russians have a ton of pre-dreadnaught battleships .... I guess they love the old Czar stuff.

Warshipbuilder,

You're way off on resin kits. Some of the finest model kits in the business are resin. On any given day, I can take a resin kit and give just about about anyone a run for their money that's building plastic. The vast majority of the ship models I've won competitions with have been resin.

Yes, there are some dogs out there. But there's also some incredible looking kits out there...take a look at Yankee Modelworks, JAG, White Ensign, Regia Marina, and the new Axis Models kit of the Roma. These are some of the finest kits on the market.

Jeff

I agree with Jeff Herne in many ways.

However, I personally would really like to see more large-scale (1/200 to 1/72) kits of smaller ships/boats (destroyers
to patrol boats).

This is an area which seems to be neglected by most manufacturers, with the exception of a few D-Day landing craft and Revell's recent (and excellent) 1/72 Schnellboot and U-boat. Most of the kits in this category are between 20-40 years old, though thankfully most are still pretty good detail and fit-wise.
I suppose that most smaller naval vessels simply don't have the glamour and mass appeal of things like the Bismarck, Enterprise and Missouri.

Trumpeter do seem to be branching out into this area recently, though. All their large-scale subjects have been modern
ones so far, but maybe there'll be some WW2 subjects in the future? I'd imagine a 1/144 or similar kit of a WW2 destroyer, of a similar size, detail level and price range to their 1/200 Sovremenny, would sell very well, in both the Far East and Western markets.

I can't agree more Drawde. In fact, a 1/192 or 1/200 Fletcher Class would be shorter than a 1/350 battleship. And you can bet that I'd be buying 2-3 of them, especially if they were smart and included the parts necessary to build any of the ships in the class from '43 to '45. That means two bridge types, midship sponsons for MK I and MK II Bofors, and two types of 40mm tub for the stern mount.

Since 1/192 (or 1/200) has become my favorite scale, I'd be happy with just about anything.

Jeff

I would like to see more 1/350 or 1/400 scale ww 2 ships..Like a nice CVL or some destroyer escorts, destroyer tenders, minelayers, auxilary ships, things like that..Even a 1/500 would be cool to do..I would love to see model companies do ships that havent been built yet..or early pre-dreadnought ships..the Olympia and the Oregon are already there, but i would love to see a few more of them..A battle of Jutland series would be great to see..

I would like to see a 1/350 USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67). With its one of a kind island, it would make an intresting model.

I would like to see more 1/350 or 1/400 scale ww 2 ships

Uhhh...that's what we're getting now, isn't it? It's doubtful you'll see auxilieries in the immediate future. There are obviously some exceptions, the Liberty is already here, but a Victory and a T-2 tanker would be good, obvious choices. If you're holding your breath waiting for AD, APV, APD, or other obscure vessels, then you'll be waiting for a long time.

Again (sorry if I sound like a broken record), companies are only going to release subjects that they know they can sell thousands of. There are two ways that can happen...release a model of a subject that had a large number of ships in the class (Fletcher, 175 ships), or release a ship that's famous. The latter is exactly why we have so many Iowa Class, Bismarcks, Yamatos, and Arizonas. In an ideal world, a company finds a ship that is both famous and has lots of sisters...Fletcher, Atlanta, Juneau, San Francisco, Sheffield, etc...

Although the market is fickle in other areas (someone mentioned the PT Cruiser and Pontiac Aztek), when it comes to ships, we're dealing with historical subjects. The market quirks are few and far between, because we've got a finite number of subjects to work with. Obviously, the demand for a 1/350 HMS Hood is going to far exceed the demand for a 1/350 USS Nebraska circa 1912. I did this once before on this forum, listing what I thought the kits that NEEDED to be done, and would be successful with sales. I base this on my time as a resin ship kit producer, and my knowledge of the subject matter and model industry. Some of these are no brainers, and although they're not my favorites, they still make the most sense.

#1: HMS Hood
#2: 80' Elco PT Boat (in a large scale)
#3: late-war Fletcher class
#4: Sumner/Gearing
#5: USS Atlanta/Juneau
#6: USS Indianapolis
#7: Graf Spee
#8: USS San Francisco
#9: IJN Akagi
#10: HMS Sheffield

Are these my favorites? Nope...I want Warspite, Renown, Takao, Myoko, Cleveland, Baltimore, Taiho, Nagato, Vittorio Venetto, Scharnhorst. Am I ever going to see them? Who knows...but like I said, I have more than enough new stuff to keep me busy until the next new kit arrives.

Jeff

Jeff,
Your 10 list and what you want to see is right on.I would like to see RN Pola, Fiume and the third sister ship which i can't recall off the top of my head..

Actually, it's Zara, Pola, Gorizia, and Fuime..and you can get Pola from Trumpeter/Banner/MiniHobby in 1/350 scale, and all four sisters in 1/400 from Tauro Models.

While the quality of the Trumpeter kit is better than the Tauro, you still have more choices with the latter.

Jeff
Jeff

Maybe we modelers are going about this in the wrong way . We could create a market for all the ships we want by first coming up with 100 million dollars - then we get a movie producer like Georfge Lucas or Steven Spielberg to direct an epic movie about all those ships we want to have a manufacturer make. Call it "War Ships- Revenge of the Modeler" Then millions of people go and see the movie and want to make the models . It would work -think of all the models of Tie fighters and X wings out there !!!!! But if we could get 100 miilion dollars we could just make these models ourselves nevermind

For my needs, they could just do an epic called "Jutland."

Sadly, they wouldn't need models...everything is 3D now, and better looking than anything we could do in scale. Not to mention, blowing up a 3d model is alot less painful than a real one.

Jeff

Jeff,
I am just happy that they finaly released a USS North Carolina. I think that Trumpeter is following the order in which the ships were built. Next we should see a South Dakota Class Battleship. I belive that there are markets for other ships arround the country.

Actually, I'd like to see a HMS Belfast since its still afloat and I've been on it. Also, WW2 US Destroyer escorts to go along with an Atlantic-based jeep carrier(the U-505 diorama!) plus the early battleships(PENNSYLVANIA, TENNESSEE, RODNEY/NELSON, any of the French or Italian BB's, REPULSE, etc.

How about 1/144 scale fleetboats, Type IV's, Skipjacks, Threshers, George Washingtons?

QUOTE: Originally posted by sgtmac Actually, I'd like to see a HMS Belfast since its still afloat and I've been on it. Also, WW2 US Destroyer escorts to go along with an Atlantic-based jeep carrier(the U-505 diorama!) plus the early battleships(PENNSYLVANIA, TENNESSEE, RODNEY/NELSON, any of the French or Italian BB's, REPULSE, etc. How about 1/144 scale fleetboats, Type IV's, Skipjacks, Threshers, George Washingtons?

Then again, what about other modern carriers? I was so pleased when I saw the three British "through-deck cruisers' of the Invincible class put out by Skywave! That was a long time coming; I have all three built.

The Italian Guisseppe Garibaldi is a beautiful, sexy ship that would build into a gorgeous model. And what about the newest French carrier? Italeri had it in their catalog once but it ended up being vaporware. Personally I wouldn't mind seeing the Foch amd Clemenceau in a smaller scale (1/600 or 1/700). Heller's offerings are a bit big for me.

Then again there are all the post-war British carriers that were 'loaned' or sold to other Navies like the Netherlands, India, Australia and Canada. They would also be great additions to any collection. But as Jeff mentioned, the general public has no knowledge of them, so they'll never see plastic.

I'm still surprised there are no 1:350 kits of Kirov/Ushakov. It's done well in 1:2400 and 1:700, so it would be a logical step up to 1:350. And the ship is absolutely awesome and has beautiful lines. Heck, let's pool our money and buy one of the real ones ... I'll bet we could get it pretty cheap these days. Then we can make it into a modeler's museum and park it in Bremerton beside the Turner Joy. They left enough space there for the Missouri, but politics sent her to Hawaii where it costs too much to visit. (Yeah, sour grapes) So a Soviet Battlecruiser would be .... oh ... well ......... never mind. I get crazy sometimes .......

QUOTE: Originally posted by IronBrigade Jeff, Your 10 list and what you want to see is right on.I would like to see RN Pola, Fiume and the third sister ship which i can't recall off the top of my head..

yeeehhaaaayyy !! I'll see your 10 list and raise you one USS Texas

To keep myself out of trouble (which I seem to have a knack for creating), I'm going to plead the 5th!!! :-)

How's this for an official "Jeff-statement"... If it floats, I'll be thrilled to get a kit of it!!

In all seriousness, I'm a die-hard ship modeler. Ships have an intrinsic beauty all their own...yes, there are lots of pretty airplanes, shapely autos, and even predatory looking looking tanks, but there's just something about a ship...

I'm not overly-excited about modern vessels, probably because (in most cases, with some exceptions) they lack the graceful curves of the ships from the first half of the 20th century. Ships like the Alaskas, Iowas, Scharnhorst, Takao, are all beautifully designed vessels, sleek, graceful...even the tubby Liberty ship has certain appeal to it.

The best of all are the liners...Mauretania, Lusitania are perhaps the prettiest of all...the Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, the United States and America, even the over-publicized Titanic...

Ok, I'm done...whew...glad I got that off my chest...

Jeff

Since a few ocean liners were mentioned, how about kits of the Normandie, Andrea Doria or Leonardo DeVinchi, Rex, or France?

I know, I know, I'll shut up and unroll the plans, get the Plastistruct, brass sheet, and resin, and build my own if I want one. Just like if I want a post SCB27 Essex class carrier.

Scott

Normandie only looks good when she's laying on her side....bah...sorry...

Jeff

Actually .......... as much as I love the lines of Normandie, that would be one wicked diorama.