Advice needed on 1/350 Battleships

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Drummond
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Advice needed on 1/350 Battleships

Post by Drummond »

Greetings!

I've been on a search for several days now and I kept stumbling across the wealth of information here on these Forums. So since it seems many of you have fantastic knowledge on the subject (while the local hobby store was useless), and I have very little, I thought I'd throw up a post to see If any of you all can help me.

My plan is to begin construction a 1/350 Bismark and once that's completed move on to do a premier Battleship from each of the major nations of WWII (King George V, Missouri, Yamato etc) in that same size. I'm hoping it will provide more than a few years of education and enjoyment. So the advice I'm looking for are what manufactures would you recommend for that size, and what add-on kits would you recommend keeping in mind my goal is to have the ships come out as accurately and detailed as possible for that size range. I'm also willing to scratch build some components as needed although that is my weakest area.

What I've found: For manufactures Tamiya looked pretty good, and seemed to have a model for many of the ships I am looking for. I thought that would be useful since I'd like to eventually display all the ships together, and I'd like to keep the quality level as similar as possible. That said I've seen great things about Revell Germany's new Bismark model, although being from the US I'm having trouble figuring out how I could purchase it (I can't find it on the US site). I've also seen a lot about add-on kits, especially photo-etched components but i know very little about where to find these, what their quality levels are and what their compatibility is. (ie I saw a good looking add-on from LionRoar on the Dragon Model website but have no idea of it's compatibility with say, Tamiya)

If you have any other advice or pointers to guide me to a decision it would be much appreciated!
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Karl Heidenreich
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Re: Advice needed on 1/350 Battleships

Post by Karl Heidenreich »

Drummond,

In effect the Tamiya is a good starting point (at least it was my starting point). I have a Bismarck, a Tirpitz, plus KGV and PoW, Yamato and Missouri (and a Fletcher destroyer)from Tamiya and were good, indeed. The HMS Hood with photo etched parts from Trumpeter is great. The Bismarck from Revell (I have it but has not yet built it) promises to be a great kit. One of the models with photo etched parts that looks great (another one I have but haven´t built) is Nagato from Hasegawa.
I will very much like to build Renown from Trumpeter as the Richeliu from that same brand.

Best regards,

Karl
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
Sir Winston Churchill
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The_Ships_Cat
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Re: Advice needed on 1/350 Battleships

Post by The_Ships_Cat »

Hi there. In my opinion I'd steer clear of Tamiya, most of their kits are dated and low on detail. I'm not a whinger about kits, some of my 48th aircaft have a long history, though they are either easy to super detail or convert.
The Revell Bismarck is superb and with the BMK barrels, WE, GMM and Eduard etch you are on a winner. Don't just go for Tamiya on reputation. There are good examples of Tamiya and Revell on the web.
Steer clear of Trumpeter's Graf Spee, she is too narrow and has a few faults in places. The Academy version, not without it's own faults, low on detail and I did hear that the searchlight platform was incorrect. Having looked at some decent drawings of her, a little bit of re-profiling and WE etch again not a bad model. I'm not sure if I'm alone on the Graf Spee, my favourite German ship, I just think Academy got her fits wrong. A good Spithead Spee is very doable with a scratch Heinkel.

Trumpeter Hood again has it's faults but again etch and new turrets help. If you go to the Hood website there is a brilliant article on accurising the 1941 fit.
Trumpeter have an annoying habit of silly mistakes so just keep an eye on reviews.
Hope this helps and I haven't ruffled any feathers, this is just my opinion from my experience.
regards,
The Ships Cat.
"We stand tall on the quarterdeck, son.
All of us."
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RF
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Re: Advice needed on 1/350 Battleships

Post by RF »

This is an interesting dialogue started by Drummond, but the idea of KGV itself being regarded as a ''premier battleship'' is something I find rather bemusing..... only one major action and most of its guns didn't work properly.
''Give me a Ping and one Ping only'' - Sean Connery.
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The_Ships_Cat
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Re: Advice needed on 1/350 Battleships

Post by The_Ships_Cat »

This is an interesting debate though I suppse it is preferences and availability.
This will sound funny but I try to stay away from the "Big" names, though as my naval modelling interests are spread over a vast ocean of themes some subjects have to be done as that is the only choice and you can't escape them. For example, modelling the battle of Trafalgar there is the Victory and not much else. The Lindberg Jolly Roger pirate ship is a fairly good 32 gun frigate, and unless you get the Zvezda "Acheron" the only frigate in town. oh yes the Lindberg plastic is so rubbery you need a good glue to stick it and that doen't always work, I just look at mine and a cannon falls off, that is why I haven't touched it in 10 years. So this brings us back to the Victory in various scales where I'd much prefer the Pickle.

The Denmark Straight action brings us to the usual suspects and the River Plate ditto. Though I'm hoping WEM will adress this imbalance one day. This again is an obvious statement though I love the Spee the best (see other posts :lol: ) So again I'm doing a famous subject, this time by choice not by what I can buy in a model shop or flea-bay etc.
Also the mainstream manufacturers are at fault to a degree. The "workhorse" kits that are important get overlooked and sometimes the fit is daft Trpmeter's Eugen springs into my Swiss cheesse head, this goes for aircraft too for more famous subjects. There is no mainstream Chipmunk or Sea Vixen (though there is meant to be one available soon) though countless re-boxing of Spithurryschmittstangs.

As for ships what is there in 350th mainstream for us that want British subjects? ICM did the Markgraf and family but no Lion or Tiger or anyhthing else that you can care to think of. You again can count on possibly one hand, I'm not great at maths so I might be wrong here and destroy my arguement, how many British subjects in 350th there are. Which brings us back to the start, KGV, Hood, POW, Repulse (which I shall get and back date to a WW1 fit.) So of course these are going to be the "Big" names along with the Tamiya Japanese and American subjects.
Airfix are releasing a 350th Harrier carrier, nice but what about Ajax? Exeter? Achillies? a Tribal class? Black Swan clas? Surely these would serve us better? Though I guess Airfix have the same attitude to modelling as the general public...they are for kids. Kids don't want "old" stuff...they want Harriers, nooclear subs, JSF and the ilk.
Though as modellers are we equally to blame? People seem to want the big stuff: The giant Tamiya Tiger the Big whatever and the other.
Then maybe I'm the freak and modellers aren't like that and it's just in my genetic make-up as my fave Star Wars ship is the humble Y-wing as opposed to the X-wing that blew up the Death Star. I like Tamsin Grieg and not Julia Roberts. When I see a Wedding Present gig I'm looking at Terry Decastro more than David Gedge (Sorry David, I try..I fail.) The pattern here is I'm more partial to the 2nd string than the leader of the Orchestra. Ronnie Peterson and not Mario Andretti, I had a poster of Ray Kennedy on my wall as a young girl and not Kevin Keegan. Yup, there is a picture here.
What are you meant to do...?
Hmmm.... I think I saw Dai had a Tamiya KGV in his shop.....
regards,
The Ships Cat.
"We stand tall on the quarterdeck, son.
All of us."
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Karl Heidenreich
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Re: Advice needed on 1/350 Battleships

Post by Karl Heidenreich »

Well, this Christmas things went well for me, so far. I had the oportunity during the season to finish my 1:350 König Battleship. The model quality was not that good but the final result is decent. It´s incredible that the size was almost the same of an actual Arleigh Burke USN destroyer. Is it that today´s destroyers are too big or WWI battleships too small?

Also I finished a 1:350 Yukikaze IJN destroyer. Beautifull thing from Hasegawa.

On the dock to be built sometime:

1. Kutznezov CVN
2. USS Yorktown
3. USS San Francisco
4. HMS Repulse (Yeah! I have it)
5. RM Pola (Incredible model)
6. IJN Nagato
7. IJN Akagi
8. IJN Mikasa
9. Revell´s Bismarck

All in 1:350. All great. I think I´m building Kutznezov or Repulse first here.

Expecting to buy me Dragon´s Schnhorst and Trumpeter´s PE and GS.

Best regards
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
Sir Winston Churchill
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