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Why does Hasegawa not include weapons for most of their modern kits?


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17 minutes ago, Valleyofvallejo said:

Based on what reason?

 

The sheer number and diversity of weapons. It would not have been practical to include all load possibilities in a kit and modellers being modellers they would moan more about what was not included than praise what was. The weapons sets were first issued at a time when kits were less sophisticated and the loads included often poor and were considered a great idea at the time. The kits were cheaper then too. The UK mark up on them now is little short of outrageous.

 

Nick

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12 minutes ago, chris57 said:

Interesting point, begs the question if some of the other manufacturers cut back on the OTT weapon sprues would the prices come back to more reasonable levels?

 

Doubt it Chris, they'd just charge the same price for the kit and then nearly the same price for the weapons.

 

Far from being an asinine decision by Hasegawa, I would suggest it was a very shrewd one.

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Hasegawa were indeed very shrewd. Because in the end its all about the $ € £ ¥ isnt it ? If you pay X for a kit and then you need Y weapons for it you must buy the weapons set as well. Thats why most modelers have a weapons spare box/bin to keep unused ordnance. We still have to buy the weapons sets but if a kit comes with a particular loadout and you only use some of them save the rest. Now even if they are of questionable quality you can still use them. Example stick the less quality ones on the inner most stations or on bomb dolly/loaders if doing a diorama. Fact is i still have one of the weapons sets i bought in 1988. And i just replaced the other's in 2015. Yes i took a hiatus of several years in that time but i build quite a few kits so ?  27 years for me was an investment that was worth it. You might use a weapons set quicker than i did but i think you will get a few years at least out of one. Considering there is a large number of options in each set and unless you're building kits on an assembly line you wont use the kit up all that fast. I've barely used my sets as most non Hasegawa kits come with dumb bombs and air to air missiles of some sort. On top of that there are some types of ordnance we may never use. If you asked some of us we might just trade away if we dont need/want it.

 

Dennis

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Personally, I don't have an issue with it, because it means that the weapons mounted on various kits match.  When the manufacturers produce their own versions of the weapons they often differ substantially from other manufacturer's versions in shape and quality, and the difference stands out like a sore thumb when the models are grouped together.

 

Regards,

Murph

Edited by Murph
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On 7/9/2017 at 10:01 AM, Nick Millman said:

 

The sheer number and diversity of weapons. It would not have been practical to include all load possibilities in a kit and modellers being modellers they would moan more about what was not included than praise what was. The weapons sets were first issued at a time when kits were less sophisticated and the loads included often poor and were considered a great idea at the time. The kits were cheaper then too. The UK mark up on them now is little short of outrageous.

 

Nick

 

I can see how that applies to kits like the A-10 and F-15E but leaving out Sidewinders, Sparrows and AMRAAMs, which are present in most if not all load-outs for modern (NATO) fighters is a taking it a bit far. Even if you don't want something exotic you will need these to even dress up your kit to a basic level.

 

Besides, if other kit manufacturers do it (Revell comes to mind), it makes them look extra stingy.

 

Luckily it seems they've started to reverse their position on this somewhat in recent years, the Eurofighter had a good weapons set if I recall - probably because they didn't want to release a separate weapons set just for that kit.

 

By the way, Hasegawa's position on this does make a bit more sense if you look at this from the point of view of their home market. Their kits are sold at extortionate prices here, and it really hurts to have to fork over an extra tenner just to get give it some teeth. But in Japan the kits cost less than half of what they are in Europe, and standard of living is higher, which makes them even cheaper - relatively. So it's actually nice to have more of a 'pay for what you want' option there.

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I should imagine that it all boils down to money.  Some folks don't add weapons to their models (young me could never be bothered), so the tooling of such would be wasted effort on a large scale.  It also adds to the cost of the model, and why include them if you don't have to, and can create separate sets to extract a few more shekels from the model buying public.  Now we've got the Eduard Brassin sets to choose from, which blow the Hasegawa sets out of the water in terms of detail, we're spoiled for choice, depending on your budget :)

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The brassin sets look good in the box and are great if you know how to handle them but they are not everyone's cup of tea. I spent some money on two sets of AIM-9Bs in 72nd but threw them out after wasting an entire evening trying to glue the fins on. I got some Hasegawa weapons sets instead, which were still pretty good, almost the same price and gave me stacks of spares for other projects. 

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6 hours ago, sroubos said:

Luckily it seems they've started to reverse their position on this somewhat in recent years, the Eurofighter had a good weapons set if I recall - probably because they didn't want to release a separate weapons set just for that kit.

 

They did/do - Europe [sic] Aircraft Weapons Set X72-15.

 

My means of justifying buying a number of Hasegawa Typhoons (granted, at ebay prices rather than those Amerang thinks are reasonable) that weighed in at approx £25-£29 was that I was getting a free weapons set with every kit/buying a Typhoon for about a tenner and a nice kit of the Typhoon (most with a stand included) for about £15, which seemed to represent that rare correlation of the words 'Hasegawa' and 'bargain'...

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10 hours ago, XV107 said:

 

They did/do - Europe [sic] Aircraft Weapons Set X72-15.

 

Which contained just the weapons sprue from their Typhoon kit.   :)

 

Cheers,

 

Andre

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On 7/10/2017 at 3:48 PM, sroubos said:

 

I can see how that applies to kits like the A-10 and F-15E but leaving out Sidewinders, Sparrows and AMRAAMs, which are present in most if not all load-outs for modern (NATO) fighters is a taking it a bit far. Even if you don't want something exotic you will need these to even dress up your kit to a basic level.

 

 

When you consider the different variants of Sidewinder, Sparrow and AMRAAM over the life of a platform it makes sense.

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Hi there

 

Well to me the Hasegawa weapons kits lacks of one simple mistake and that is basic math, some of them can be use on limited options, for example sets I to IV, are addressed for Vietnam Era; there are so many configurations for the Sidewinders AIM but only 4 Sparrows in the set that don't make sense

Same happen with Modern Japanese weapons theren't enough Japanese Sparrow like missiles (it include only 6)  for a F-15 + a Phantom (each one need 4 of them) and for Japanese AIM Sidewinder type even less again only 6 of the type and F-15 + Phantom and F-1 so you need 2 sets to do a barely colection of 3 modern japanese jets kits

As for modern US Aircraft 2 different sets of missiles but only 4 Sidewiner AIM-9X so its really limited

They push you to bought 2 sets of each one if yyou plan to so some lets say 10-15 aircrafts kits in wonderful 1/72 scale.

Pitty but real so mayor trouble jumper is to interchange parts with other modellers

 

Best day

 

Armando

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2 hours ago, Bobski said:

 

When you consider the different variants of Sidewinder, Sparrow and AMRAAM over the life of a platform it makes sense.

 

They used to include them in many of their pre-1990s kits like their F-16A/B so it wasn't a problem before. Other manufacturers did and do include them and often quite a few 'specials' as well, like Revell and Italeri.

 

It's just a money spinner for Hasegawa.

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8 minutes ago, sroubos said:

 

They used to include them in many of their pre-1990s kits like their F-16A/B so it wasn't a problem before. Other manufacturers did and do include them and often quite a few 'specials' as well, like Revell and Italeri.

 

It's just a money spinner for Hasegawa.

Ahhhh man well let me say that I use the hase F-16 as official supplier for BL755 only place to find an accurate one, also the AIM-9P valid for so many European jet fighters, run of stock Italeri weapons tend to be real slim in most modern jet fighters specially the Jaguars and Mirage 2000

 

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It's more to do with simple tooling costs and quality control.

 

If a missile or bomb was produced for each kit, Hasegawa would have to pay for the tooling for the parts and then pass that on to the customers. Even for an identical missile or bomb, each tool would be slightly different as this is natural variation of the same process. Therefore it makes sense to only tool them up once as long as they are accurate (therein lies another point for debate).

 

In conclusion, their thinking was shrewdness based on sound engineering sense. Why keep re-inventing the wheel?

 

Andy

 

 

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Red Dot, you mention a point that almost everyone here, and most certainly I, have missed entirely. It certainly makes a lot of sense when one considers this. That it brings them a few extra dollars, pounds, Euros, etc., is also true. But, the fact that the 'one time tooling' allows(in theory) for more accurate 'ordnance' to put on, or around, a kit is a good thing for us. As you allude, though, we can debate the accuracy of the bombs, missiles, etc..

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7 hours ago, Red Dot said:

...then pass that on to the customers....

 

And watch as the UK importer then added further to the price so that a weapons set would cost about the same as an actual precision-guided weapon.... 

 

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On woensdag 12 juli 2017 at 4:47 PM, RAGATIGER said:

Well to me the Hasegawa weapons kits lacks of one simple mistake and that is basic math, some of them can be use on limited options, for example sets I to IV, are addressed for Vietnam Era; there are so many configurations for the Sidewinders AIM but only 4 Sparrows in the set that don't make sense

 

It does make sense from Hasegawa's point of view, since it means more weapons kits sold!

 

What does annoy me, is that while the older sets include two each of two different sprues, the newer sets include three identical ones. So you'll end up with, for instance, three GBU-24's.

 

Cheers,

 

Andre

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