Geoff_B

Imperial Hobby Productions are working on the 1/700 CVA-01 RN aircraft carrier that was intended to replace Eagle & Ark Royal, this kit will come with Phantoms and Buccaneers, however its unlikely to appear before the end of the year and may be 2022 release. The Trumpeter Nimitz and Eisenhower both have late 70s boxings with F=-4 Phantoms onboard, Trumpeter have recently released the Constellation, Kitty Hawk and JFK in both whilst entering service with Phantoms, these kits all depict the later era of the ships with Super Hornets or Tomcats. Dragon were n the verge of releasing a 1/700 USS Enterprise in her 60's fit with Phantoms and other period aircraft, but this kit never appeared and appears to have been adapted to create a diecast ready made toy instead. The Atlantic Models 1/700 Resin & Etch kit of HMS Ark Royal is the only kit of the 70s Ark Royal with Phantoms but if you register interest with Mike at Starling Models you should get notified if the kit gets restocked (The Fujimi 1/700 Injection moulded kits of Eagle and Ark Royal are old kits of both ships in their 50's configuration before both Carriers were rebuilt in the 60s and would take a lot of work to convert to a Phantom capable carrier, Other kits of the Ark Royal are either the WW2 carrier or the 80s Invincible class kits for Swordfish and Sea Harrier respectively.

Ant, These are the STAAG twin 40mm in 1/325th scale https://www.shapeways.com/product/M6G44Y9EC/1-325-rn-twin-40mm-bofors-aa-guns-set-x6?optionId=185171311&li=marketplace Cheers Geoff

https://www.wonderlandmodels.com/products/revell-172-space-shuttle-discovery/ Wonderland are saying 16th April

1-350-royal-navy-twin-20mm-oerlikon-mkv-guns Micro Master already do the guns so you could add them on to the order for the upgrade set

The Revell kit is actually due for reissue next month :- https://www.hannants.co.uk/product/RV5673?result-token=B85uS

2020/2021 Catalogue - Ships listing That the 2020/2021 catalogue about 9 months after they were posted on here. As for 2021/2022 I have seen no sign, last year the Catalogue was sneak released on the 19th December and officially posted up on the 4th of Feb, which seemed to tie in with the Nuremberg Toy Fair, as the Trade shows are now happening, i'm not sure where we will get the annual release schedule as also looking to see what the likes of Fujimi and Aoshima have planed in the way of ship kits.

Yes Colin passed over the EAP to Dave at Combat Kits for re-issuing

You can get the MK8 MK1 "Kryten" turret in the Dragon HMS York as they have the original gun and the optional later refit version

Its not the ship numbers its the ship building programme, the is generally a steady flow of warships being built to keep the yards current and the fleet refreshed during the 90s it was the type 23s then the type 45s then it would have been the type 26's but they culled the Type 45 half way through, put the development of next generation warship into endless definition projects without any real designs as they robbed the long term budget to pay for short term doo-doo for the Army. That's why we got the 5 rivers when what we really needed was Frigates because the design wasn't ready and the Type 45 programme had ended early so there was nothing ready to build off the drawing board. The Army is in even worse shape as they haven't a clue what they are supposed to be doing or what they need and have wasted 20 yrs with virtually nothing to show for it

They woud probably specify the same systems as they are pretty much off the shelf items, as I don't think they want to guarantee Babcock's a repeat order without putting in a competitive bid nor exclude the other shipyards from participating. Of course there are other ships that need to be built in the next 10-15 years apart from Escorts so the they are likely to get involved in the Stores Ship programme and whatever we get for the MCMW and Survey fleet replacement. Most of the cock up in the Ship Building was those bloody stupid pointless wars we got dragged into at the same time the very same government was cutting costs elsewhere else, cancelling the intended warship builds (the remaining Type 45s, the Type 22/Type 23 replacement/follow on by putting it into a never ending project analysis loop, cancelling the tankers and then forcing the Warship builders to merge for the big Carrot of the replacement Carriers winner takes all prize. There would have been plenty of work for all the shipyards and some would have been able to survive as a going concern.

To be honest though I dont think we will see much more in the way of news on these ships as yet, the new Stores ships and new Research ships are likely to be the next new items with a quick competition for the former and hopefully more news on the 2nd. We're still awaiting the names for the Type 31's so they will probably start to appear soon as the cutting of steel should start soon.

The other factors to consider are building them elsewhere than Scotland to share the load and skill up other yards; plus they may consider the other designs put forward to the Type 31 competition as with less of constricting budget these may be amore viable fully fledged frigate with greater export potential.

Dragon do or Did the Invincible and the Type 42 Batch 1 & Batch II ships, you can get a resin Bristol from MT Minatures which is OK, Orange Hobby do an excellent Resin & Etch Hermes in the Falklands fit. Atlantic models do/did the Type 22 Batch 1 Broadsword in resin & etch. Staring Modes are doing the Glamorgan, the Sea Wolf Leander and Rothesay class in Resin & Etch over the next 18 months. The awkward one s the Type 21, Pitroad did an accurate one in resin & etch, and Dragon did a Plastic kit but made a complete hash of it by copying the Airfix 1/600 Amazon kit and forgot to rescale the hull down to 1/700 so its too big and looks out of place. MT Minatures also do the other Leander variants but these feel to be scaled up from 1/1250 scale ready mades and thus are not as sharp and as detailed 1/700 kits. L'Arsenal do the Fearless in resin & Etch.

The retooled Aoshima Illustrious isn't that bad to be honest, but a Flyhawk 1/700 will be superb. I'm guessing by the 19140 period that they will use the FAA Aircraft Set 1 from the Hermes and do a Taranto raid boxing. Hopefully they will do a late war Formidable or Victorious (they have already announced Formidable but no time frame) as it would be nice to get later war British FAA types such as the Seafire, Barracuda and Firefly

https://www.wonderlandmodels.com/products/airfix-172-avro-lancaster-bii/ Wonderland are saying the 23rd August when they expect it