What are the noticeable omissions in 1/72?

[Dave Fleming]

We've had a lot of new WW2 kits over recent years, notably from the likes of Special Hobby, but also from the Big Boys , and it got me thinking are there any REALLY noticeable ommisions from the kits available? i.e. is there a subject that was a major player in WW2 and there isn't a reasonable kit of it out there (There may be an ancient one that is poor)

My first suggestion is an early P-38 - Airfix and Hasegawa both made attempts at these, but neither is particularly accurate for an early aircraft. Airfix is closer, but still got the radiator shape wrong. Pity Academy didn't follow up their P-38J with an F.

Second are the early Boston/A-20 series - promised by SH but for now we have to rely on the Highplanes kit for an accurate early one.

What are your thoughts?

Edited April 17, 2010 by Dave Fleming

[AnonymousFO98]

A Hawker Hurricane without the mistakes!

[Heraldcoupe]

RAF twin and four engined bombers are poorly catered for. The Whitley is crying out to be done, as are the Stirling and Halifax.

Cheers,

Bill.

[Nick Millman]

Mitsubishi Ki-21 "Sally". Most common Japanese Army medium bomber throughout the war, fought on all fronts. Two major versions, lots of options, has interesting civilian and military transport spin offs.

The Revell-Takara classic circa 1972, which is still sought after and commands high prices, won't be re-issued because the molds are, allegedly, lost forever and in any case it suffered from a few odd shape problems. The MPM vinyl kits are horrible, difficult to find anyway and suffer from the weird plastic + short-run + resin bits syndrome. Hasegawa, who might have been expected to release one with their Ki-49/G3M/G4M updates unfortunately didn't (probably because of MPM) and even if they did the probability is that no-one could afford one.

(Come on, Zvezda, you know you want to - A Ki-21 and crew like your Ju88 would be very nice)

[John Thompson]

<sob!> Here I go again, even if this is Britmodeller and not Russmodeller - 1/72 Yak-1b (please, please, oh please - I feel another hopeless, deadend kitbash coming on...), Polikarpov I-153, I-16 type 5, Lavochkin La-9/La-11; maybe the La-5 series to compete with AML...

John

[Nick Millman]

<sob!> Here I go again, even if this is Britmodeller and not Russmodeller - 1/72 Yak-1b (please, please, oh please - I feel another hopeless, deadend kitbash coming on...), Polikarpov I-153, I-16 type 5, Lavochkin La-9/La-11; maybe the La-5 series to compete with AML...

John

Don't understand that. Heller and ICM I-153, A-Model I-16 Type 5? Agree about the La-9/La-11 though.

[Richard M]

Whitley

Manchester

Lincoln

[The Velociweiler]

If you don't mind I'm going to upgrade my reply to each of the major scales, whether 1\144 up to 1\24 - I think one seriously major omission is a WWII Weapon Set for British Aircraft. All bombs, rockets, torpedoes, depth charges etc. In late models we're beginning to see some decent representations and a wee bit of variety in good quality but in the main, miniature ordnance to hang under wings often is all too clearly an irritating afterthought for the manufacturer.

So - British Air Weapon Set WWII and Post-War too would be nice to see, and in all major scales.

[John Thompson]

Don't understand that. Heller and ICM I-153, A-Model I-16 Type 5? Agree about the La-9/La-11 though.

Well, the OP qualified his question with "There may be an ancient one that is poor", and the Heller I-153 is both (there is no ICM I-153 - they have done excellent versions of the I-15 and I-15bis, and would be the go-to guys to do a superb I-153, if only they would!); likewise the Amodel I-16 type 5. It can be a fine model, but needs a lot of TLC to get it there. But it's the Yak-1b that I truly pine for...

John

Edited April 17, 2010 by John Thompson

[Test Graham]

The early A-20s are now advertised in the latest MAM.

You won't get agreement on the meaning of "reasonable", as illustrated above. Many modellers simply don't notice what are glaring accuracy errors to others, or condemn entire ranges because of one unhappy experience.

With this in mind I have to say Halifax, particularly Merlin Halifax, but there has been no Merlin P-40 by a major injection-tooling company. Two-stage Merlin Mosquito?

[ben_m]

Two-stage Merlin Mosquito?

I'd love a modern two-stage Merlin Mosquito in 1/72. What is the old Matchbox one like?

[John Thompson]

You won't get agreement on the meaning of "reasonable", as illustrated above. Many modellers simply don't notice what are glaring accuracy errors to others, or condemn entire ranges because of one unhappy experience.

I admit to suffering from that problem - when you're really enthusiastic about a subject (Yak-1b kitbash No.4 coming up...) and spend foolish amounts of time squinting at photos and drawings of your current favourite, you become hypersensitized to "flaws" that a "reasonable" person would ignore! But please, kit manufacturers - the only existing 1/72 Yak-1b is the old ZTS/Mikro72 kit, which does have its good points, but is compromised by the fact that it was designed long ago to try to represent both the Yak-1 and the Yak-1b, as well as suffering from a general crudeness typical for kits of its age. An accurately-shaped and -detailed, easy-to-assemble, injection-moulded styrene 1/72 Yak-1b would be very welcome, and I promise to buy several of them!!!

John

[Nick Millman]

Well, the OP qualified his question with "There may be an ancient one that is poor", and the Heller I-153 is both (there is no ICM I-153 - they have done excellent versions of the I-15 and I-15bis, and would be the go-to guys to do a superb I-153, if only they would!); likewise the Amodel I-16 type 5. It can be a fine model, but needs a lot of TLC to get it there. But it's the Yak-1b that I truly pine for...

John

Thanks for the additional comments John. I always thought Heller's I-153 was pretty much OK - typical of that era of Heller kits? I have built the A-Model I-16 and thought it was excellent - a horror to look at in the box but actually very well fitting and engineered when "cut out" and built.

Nick

Edited April 17, 2010 by Nick Millman

[Nick Millman]

The early A-20s are now advertised in the latest MAM.

You won't get agreement on the meaning of "reasonable", as illustrated above. Many modellers simply don't notice what are glaring accuracy errors to others, or condemn entire ranges because of one unhappy experience.

With this in mind I have to say Halifax, particularly Merlin Halifax, but there has been no Merlin P-40 by a major injection-tooling company. Two-stage Merlin Mosquito?

Nah, I have plenty of other MPM "vinyl experience" to go on, including the Ki-21 and sundry others. The Wimpey just holds a special place in my detestation, probably because at the time I was building it other events were going on that increased my bitterness towards it. The early A-20s piddle me off because now we are unlikely to see a proper manufacturer do them.

Merlin P-40? Special Hobby, quite recently. A short tail but one of their new generation of kits and supposedly not bad at all.

[Max Headroom]

I will leave my comments to 1/72

Meteor 8

Canberra B.2

Fairchild C-123

Gnat

Strikemaster/JP5

F-101

Harrier T.2/4 - TAV-8A

Lynx

Gazelle

Balliol (lol)

MH

[Hypnobear]

Mitsubishi Ki-21 "Sally". Most common Japanese Army medium bomber throughout the war, fought on all fronts. Two major versions, lots of options, has interesting civilian and military transport spin offs.

The Revell-Takara classic circa 1972, which is still sought after and commands high prices, won't be re-issued because the molds are, allegedly, lost forever and in any case it suffered from a few odd shape problems. The MPM vinyl kits are horrible, difficult to find anyway and suffer from the weird plastic + short-run + resin bits syndrome. Hasegawa, who might have been expected to release one with their Ki-49/G3M/G4M updates unfortunately didn't (probably because of MPM) and even if they did the probability is that no-one could afford one.

(Come on, Zvezda, you know you want to - A Ki-21 and crew like your Ju88 would be very nice)

I would really like to see more Japanese stuff, especially some Tokyo'46 planes. Most of the kits I know of are resin and too high priced for my budget, either that or theyre 1/144, which is in my opinion a scale only fit for airliners.

Would be great if someone like Revell did a 1/72 G10N1 or Ki 91 bomber!

[Matt Roberts]

Dragon looks to be doing the Havoc/Boston series in 72nd starting this year.

I do agree that RAF twins and such have been shortchanged but considering many are out there in Airfix or Frog moldings I wonder how many will receive new tools anytime soon. My best guess may be a Blenheim will be the first up as a mainstream kit.

[dambuster]

I will leave my comments to 1/72

Meteor 8

Canberra B.2

Fairchild C-123

Gnat

Strikemaster/JP5

F-101

Harrier T.2/4 - TAV-8A

Lynx

Gazelle

Balliol (lol)

MH

Not sure that many of these were around in WWII.....

Peter

[John Thompson]

Thanks for the additional comments John. I always thought Heller's I-153 was pretty much OK - typical of that era of Heller kits? I have built the A-Model I-16 and thought it was excellent - a horror to look at in the box but actually very well fitting and engineered when actually "cut out" and built.

Nick

I have to admit, my experience with the Amodel I-16 was pretty much exactly as you describe ("cut out" speaks volumes; one of mine also came with a pink canopy...); it's just that it's very much in the shade of the ICM I-16 kits by comparison. So I admit to being a bit hasty on that one. The Heller I-153 - well, the rib detail on the wings and control surfaces is pretty extreme, and there are a few other, less noticeable inaccuracies (there is a detailed analysis of this kit in an article somewhere on the Hobbyvista VVS site, BTW); again, it suffers badly by comparison with those ICM Polikarpov biplanes. My comments were sort of keyed to the original poster's criticism of the Airfix early P-38, which I thought was a fine kit at the time I bought it - illustrating yet again Graham's point regarding what is "reasonable"!

John

[dad's lad]

I'd like to see Italeri bring us some state of the art Italian fighters - Fiat G.50, Fiat G.55, Macchi MC.200.

From an RAF point of view, Stirling, Halifax, Whitley, Hampden and Sunderland all need updating.

Klyve

Edited April 17, 2010 by dad's lad

[John Thompson]

The early A-20s piddle me off because now we are unlikely to see a proper manufacturer do them.

I didn't want to say it in my first post, but that was exactly my reaction to the AML 1/72 La-5 series, after fighting and failing with the first in that series, the La-5UTI! Now no one else will want to touch them as kit subjects... (And even then I bought two of the La-5 and one of the La-5F, despite the very high price for a 1/72 single-engined type!)

John

Edited April 17, 2010 by John Thompson

[upnorth]

In 1/72 I wouldn't mind seeing a freshly tooled Lysander.

The three options I'm aware of out there (Matchbox, Airfix and Pavla) are workable but, in the case of Matchbox and Airfix, long in the tooth and real basic. In the Case of Pavla, just a pig to get together and the vac formed canopy doesn't lend much support to the wings.

I'd follow that up with a good 1/72 Beech 18.

I'm not aware that the available 1/72 kits of that aircraft ever did it justice at all and it was a significant player if unsung in WWII.

[Overhaulin]

Certainly echo the sentiments of early war RAF bombers.

What about the Dornier Do17 ?.

[Test Graham]

For an unsung major player, what about the C-54?

Revell are to release a B-17G, which I feel should fill one gap.

OK, how could I forget? Harvard with long canopy.

[Tony Whittingham]

Hello All,

The Lincoln is definitely missing.

I'd also like to throw in the Il-18 series (Zvezda, how about it?)

Martin Mariner ( there's rumours of one)

VC-10

DC-7C

Britannia/Yukon

DH Comet 4

I know there have been vacforms of some, but no injection moulded that I know of.

I'm dreaming in technicolour again, but it's fun!