1/72 P.1000 Ratte German Mega-Tank - Modelcollect

[Madoc]

 

From the "you've got to be kidding" department, comes this!

 

A P.1000 Ratte "landcruiser" WW II German tank.  If Modelcollect comes through with this thing than it will be the biggest tank model kit in 1/72 scale ever made.  No word yet on when it will be released of how much each copy will cost.  Details to follow...

[general melchett]

Good grief, now that really grabs me. I'm half way through the Takom 1/144th kit and that's a good size this thing will be enormous and sit very nicely with the new 1/72nd Squadron Haunebu II in the Teutonic 'Vot-If' cabinet of crazy ideas.

Bravo.......it's going to decimate the weathering products stash.

[The wooksta V2.0]

YES!  I am sooooooo having one of them!

Wearing British captured markings as, well, you know, the Germans LOST!

 

[172flogger]

[Madoc]

GM,

 

And you could always park it facing off with one of these...

 

Vickers 6 ton light tank model E, version A

[Madoc]

Wooksta,

 

And surround it with some Churchills and a couple of Beford QLDs for scale...

[The wooksta V2.0]

I think Centurions would be more in keeping, somehow.

[Albeback52]

Be nice if they throw in a 1/72 Maus as well - the way TAKOM included a Maus with their 1/144 kit

 

Allan

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Stupid kit. 

[Panzer Vor!!!]

Driving over and crushing some  Typhoons  seems apt tbh 

[Madoc]

7 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Stupid kit. 

 

So?  Don't buy one then!  Personally, I can't see the need for yet another Me-109 kit.  Or the need for another P-51D kit.  Or the need for yet another Tiger kit.  My solution?  I don't buy them!  There!  Problem solved!

[Botan]

23 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Stupid kit. 

 

All that Wunderwaffe '46 discussions looks like it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Qf6Sv3A9zs

 

I'm on stupid side mostly, but this one is so stupid it's interesting.

[spaddad]

35 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Stupid kit. 

 

That's the spirit!

[Albeback52]

9 hours ago, Botan said:

 

All that Wunderwaffe '46 discussions looks like it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Qf6Sv3A9zs

 

I'm on stupid side mostly, but this one is so stupid it's interesting.

Agreed. I actually like these " stupid" kit subjects. In fact, it's so stupid I will buy this to go with my Takom  1/144 kit (and my equally "stupid" Revell Luftwaffe '46 kits)😁😁. Certainly rather have this than another "stupid" P-51 or Spitfire!😉

 

Allan

Edited December 29, 2016 by Albeback52

[general melchett]

What's stupid about it ?, modelling is modelling, personally I love all these weird and wonderful subjects and will continue buying them over yet another version of a 'mainstream' subject.....OK grant you the project was somewhat flawed to put it mildly but models of these things show just how diverse the hobby can be... 

 

Now if they could just stretch to the P1500 Monster, an 800mm self propelled Landkruezer  rather akin to a free(ish) roaming Dora......

Edited December 29, 2016 by general melchett

[Sgt.Squarehead]

On 28/12/2016 at 7:17 PM, Madoc said:

 

So?  Don't buy one then!  Personally, I can't see the need for yet another Me-109 kit.  Or the need for another P-51D kit.  Or the need for yet another Tiger kit.  My solution?  I don't buy them!  There!  Problem solved!

 

Don't worry, I won't.....If I want sci-fi I can do a bloody sight better than this neo-nazi flight of fancy.  

 

Frankly I find the concept of hero-worshipping the Nazis for their wunderwaffe slightly disturbing, especially as I know where most of the original BS stories actually came from.  The thought of those murderous scum surviving one second longer than they did fills me with horror, let alone a whole year. 

 

TBH, if I'd had anything to do with it, there wouldn't be any Nazi war memoirs, not one. 

[Madoc]

Sgt.Squarehead,

 

By the sound of it then you're not in favor of any German subject in any modeling, right?  No 109s.  No He-111s.  No Tigers.  No u-boats either, right?

 

And making models of WWII German subjects is hardly "hero-worshiping."  As to the various "wunderwaffe" stuff, some of it is based on actual prototypes, some based on actual design proposals, and some based on pure conjecture.  The  P.1000 never made it to prototype stage but was an actual proposal not something invented out of whole cloth and long after the war had ended.  I'm interested in it as the thing is so absurdly over the top that it is almost laughable.  And thus it is a great way of illustrating the fevered mindset which pervaded too much of the Reich in general.

 

I think the 3rd Reich deserves more study, not less, as it's a healthier thing to know how and why such an otherwise civilized bunch of folks as the Germans could so fully embrace such genocidal evil as the National Socialists.

 

I do find it ironic to read your damnation of the Nazis, just as that is, while you also sport that quote in your signature from a bunch of murderous scum who outdid even the Nazis when it came to evil and mass murder.

 

In any event, I hope that Modelcollect enjoys solid sales from this particular flight of fancy as it will help their company and encourage them to further step out from releasing yet another bland Tiger or Panzer kitting.  We all benefit from more choices of more diverse subjects, not fewer.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

I have no problem with modelling real WWII German stuff, but I find ficticious flights of fancy like this somewhat distasteful.....Unless of course they are UFOs, in which case they are cool (unless you are promoting them as real, in which case you probably need medical help). 

 

But I really don't like Nazis and Neo-Nazis and whether you like it or not, much of the promotion of Luft 46 & Pz 46 (and especially Nazi UFOs) has Neo-Nazi origins. 

 

My signature isn't a quote of anybody, it's a comment of my own.....It's in Russian as I have been or will be running several Soviet/Russian GBs.....Perhaps if you spent some time studying that great nation you might develop the ability to distinguish between Russia and the Soviet Union?  

 

PS - There are plenty of real subjects we still need in Braille, many of them British. 

 

PPS - If you honestly believe Modelcollect will make more money from this than they would from an accurate 1/72 M4A4 Sherman V or Firefly, you are kidding yourself. 

[Madoc]

Sgt. Squarehead,

 

Sorry, there's too much cognitive dissonance going on in your statement there.

 

The P.1000 was a wartime proposal.  Thus it is as legitimate a thing to model as any of the other German wartime proposals such as the Lowe or the E-75.  Personally, I find the unique subjects such as proposals like this to be far more interesting than yet another Tiger or FW-190.  Yes, your quote was in Russian but I found it ironic that you carry on about the evils of Nazis and Neo-Nazis but are happy to celebrate Russia.  I think there's ample folk in Georgia and Ukraine who'd make a strong case that the Soviet bear never actually went away it just changed its uniform.

 

And no, I don't think the Ratte will be the sales leader for Modelcollect.  But, if it makes a profit then that will encourage the company to provide us with other releases of unique subjects in the Braille Scale armor world.  Keeping with the absurd gigantism of the war, perhaps a TOG could be in their lineup.

 

 

[SeaVenom]

19 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

I have no problem with modelling real WWII German stuff, but I find ficticious flights of fancy like this somewhat distasteful.....Unless of course they are UFOs, in which case they are cool (unless you are promoting them as real, in which case you probably need medical help). 

 

But I really don't like Nazis and Neo-Nazis and whether you like it or not, much of the promotion of Luft 46 & Pz 46 (and especially Nazi UFOs) has Neo-Nazi origins. 

 

My signature isn't a quote of anybody, it's a comment of my own.....It's in Russian as I have been or will be running several Soviet/Russian GBs.....Perhaps if you spent some time studying that great nation you might develop the ability to distinguish between Russia and the Soviet Union?  

 

PS - There are plenty of real subjects we still need in Braille, many of them British. 

 

PPS - If you honestly believe Modelcollect will make more money from this than they would from an accurate 1/72 M4A4 Sherman V or Firefly, you are kidding yourself. 

 

 

 

I think most if not everyone on here would agree the Nazi's were a bunch of murderous scum but they weren't the ones who designed the vehicles.   And some neo Nazis are the ones promoting the Nazi UFO stuff which there's very little evidence for so that's probably more that way than this tank.   Again it would have been engineers designing these vehicles not Goebells or Himmler.

 

 

 

 

 

[Madoc]

47 minutes ago, SeaVenom said:

I think most if not everyone on here would agree the Nazi's were a bunch of murderous scum but they weren't the ones who designed the vehicles.   And some neo Nazis are the ones promoting the Nazi UFO stuff which there's very little evidence for so that's probably more that way than this tank.   Again it would have been engineers designing these vehicles not Goebells or Himmler.

 

SeaVenom,

 

Well, that depends on how far you want to take things.  At one level, you could declare that since any and all of the German designs were made to support the German war effort and that since that war effort was directed by the Nazis, that all those designs were therefore Nazi as well.  Thus, if you even make so much as an Me-109 in captured British markings you are therefore supporting the Nazis.  Yeah, that's stretching things but I think it illustrates the point.  I find the whole mega-tank program the Germans ran during the war to be fascinating on its technical aspects and on its military judgement aspects.  That they'd have seriously considered such things as even remotely viable is laughable on its face.  Yet, they did.  And, they weren't alone.  

 

The British actually built and tested their TOG.  The Soviets developed and actually deployed a whole line of multi-turreted "breakthrough" tanks that more resembled "land battleships" than anything else.  Even the Japanese got into this absurdity with their O-I tank that some accounts say was actually built in prototype form and run through its testing before being disassembled and canceled.  

 

Takom has already released their rendering of the P.1000 Ratte but it's in 1/144th scale.  Thus I'm very interested in Modelcollect giving it a go in The One True Scale™ as it'll allow me to build it and line it up with those other super-heavy tanks.

 

I have unfortunately, found too much of antipathy toward such modeling among some who only want to see the same old same old.  They can't stand any depictions of proposals or designs that weren't actually in operational service.  They particularly loathe the "what if?" realm of model building and spare no effort in disparaging it.  I think that a sadly limited thing.

 

Along those lines, I really don't see the need to disparage what I'm not into.  Personally, I've almost no interest in car modeling and very little interest in ship modeling.  The only things there which capture my attention is if the wheeled vehicles are in 1/72 scale and are usually military or otherwise unique in their nature.  Racing car models in other scales?  Meh.  The only ship models I have in my collection are also all 1/72nd and military.  The whole realm of 1/350th and other such scales holds zero interest to me.  Same same with kits not in 1/72nd scale.  It doesn't matter to me how excellent a 1/48th scale kit is as I've no interest in buying it or making it.

 

Yet, I don't disparage those who do.  And I certainly don't disparage the news of new kits that aren't of interest to me.  I figure the hobby is big enough for all and the more the merrier, actually, as more sales means more healthy kit manufacturers who produce more kits that I am interested in.

 

So, please do bring on that 1/48th scale XB-70 or that 1/32nd scale B-17 or that new tool 1/2700 Star Destroyer!  I won't be buying any of them but I also won't be posting how "stupid" they are in the threads here announcing them.  Instead, I'm glad to see 'em being manufactured and I wish the companies producing them the best of sales.

[SeaVenom]

Good points but I still don't think most of the manufacturers building these machines were real Nazi's.   They probably didn't realise how bad the Nazi's were at first and then later on didn't have any choice.   The whole air would have been posioned with paranoia and they'd have feared for theirs and their families lives if they'd gone against the Nazi's in charge.  

[Sgt.Squarehead]

The way I see it is this, I can respect a Panther or Tiger as a piece of German engineering, even in SS markings.....But things like this Ratte have almost no actual basis in reality, they are by and large just expressions of the Nazi ego and that is something I have no time for whatsoever. 

 

Stuff like the E-Series I'm indifferent to, it's sad that we scrapped the E-100 hull, but it also suggests it was probably of rather less significance to British engineers than the Panther (which we actually put back into production). 

[Giorgio N]

On 3/1/2017 at 9:07 AM, Madoc said:

 

SeaVenom,

 

Well, that depends on how far you want to take things.  At one level, you could declare that since any and all of the German designs were made to support the German war effort and that since that war effort was directed by the Nazis, that all those designs were therefore Nazi as well.  Thus, if you even make so much as an Me-109 in captured British markings you are therefore supporting the Nazis.  Yeah, that's stretching things but I think it illustrates the point.  I find the whole mega-tank program the Germans ran during the war to be fascinating on its technical aspects and on its military judgement aspects.  That they'd have seriously considered such things as even remotely viable is laughable on its face.  Yet, they did.  And, they weren't alone.  

 

 

 

 

Not only all German designs supported the Nazi war effort, but all arms industries in Germany profited considerably from this war effort. A large part of the German industrial world also supported Hitler during his rise to power, so it's too easy to say that a Panther or a 109 or a Ratte were just machines designed by engineers and not by the Nazis. The fact that a good number of German WW2 weapon designers offered their services to various countries thanks to Nazi refugees contacts is another proof that many were not so distant from Hitler's ideas.

At the same time as modellers I don't think we can be blamed for reproducing such weapons in plastic/resin/metal. I'm sure that for most of us these are just interesting subjects and that's it. Really if we had to attach a political of ethical meaning to our models we'd have to rethink most of our stashes of military aircrafts and vehicles. No WW2 German stuff, not much from the Soviet Union, no Fascist Italy or Republican Spain. And what about the British/American/French aircrafts that were happily used to kill people who after all only wanted to have an independent country or fought against a dictator? Not really ethical either, at this point we should all just build airliners and cars.

Personally I'm not a fan of Luftwaffe '46 and similar subjects as I much prefer to build models of things that were at least built but I can see how many are attracted to these subjects. Is there some neonazi connotation ? I'm sure that most modellers building such subjects are not interested in this. Did neonazi groups spread certain ideas on German wunderwaffen ? They sure did. At the same time the most vocal advocates of perceived WW2 German technical superiority were really the same countries that defeated Germany as they immediately rushed to analyse and re-use a large number of German designs.

To be honest, I'm more worried by the resurgence of certain nazi/fascist views in some who present themselves as the voice of the people rather than by the presence of weird WW2 '46 subjects on the modelling tables... but this would bring us into the forbidden world of politics.

Back to the model: would I buy it ? No thanks, not my cup of tea. Am I intrigued ? I am, it's such a crazy subject ! Is Modelcollect right in issuing this ? Don't know, they sure will have made their maths in terms of investment Vs. potential revenues, if the money is then used to fund the development of subjects I like I'll be happy

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Some good points well made. 

 

Actually I am beginning to soften towards it a bit.....If I view it as an ugly UFO with tracks (rather than as a Nazi ubertank) it's kinda cool in its own right. 

 

Pretty sure that it would have lost in a one on one fight with Enola Gay though.