Its not exactly what we have all been waiting for, but Airfix is releasing a 1/76nd WWI ‘Male Tank’ Mk1
That is an OLD kit that is being reissued… I built it about 35 years ago originally… nifty little tank in that scale. One of the old card kits that was displayed on a peg board…
Don’t know if you caught this or not:
They’re also due to bring out a Mk.I Female later in the year. Presumably this will have new-mould sponsons and machine guns.
What BftP!
.
I built this as a kid, many xx ago, & re-did it from Emhar in a more ‘senior friendly’ 1/35 scale.
.
Some of their kits are jewels, LCM, halftrack, 88mm, Bofors, Buffalo + jeep, & others were fun to build.
.
Airfix are releasing many of their older kits with updates, eg, Sherman + Caliope & + Crab, Churchill + Crocodile & Matilda + Hedgehog.
.
If they are updating the dies, then all well & good but I looked at the Caliope in my LHS & it looke like they hadn’t updated the Sherman die at all, but It was still a FUN BUILD with my gf’s kid.
What do modeler’s want?..some quality WWI armor models released. What do we get?..a WWI model released in a quirky, small scale. Sometimes I think these modeling companies just like to taunt and tease us modelers.[banghead]
Yea, who ever heard of 1/76th scale… its like they just grabbed random numbers
Michael and Smeagol, I think it is nice to see these old kits coming back…this one was very good in its day and a good modeler with todays materials can probably make an outstnding kit with abit of effort. As for the scale, we are lucky today to have jsut a few standardized scales. Airfix was one of those companies that helped set thet trend. They released a huge 1/72/-1/76 line. The choice probably had soemthing to do with model railroads. And did subjects no one else touched for decades, or even since then. Such as this Mk I. Fujimi also did a line of 1/76 AFV kits. I think Airfix will keep this as a reasonably priced kit that wont scare off any novice builders who decide to try this hobby for the first time.
1/76 is a model railway scale, the equivalent of ‘OO’ gauge, the standard model railway scale here in the UK.
Wargamers used to use model railway stuff (buildings, accessories, fencing and so on) to make up their battlefields, and by the early 1960s, Airfix had establisheed quite a large range of model railway buildings and accessories, It was therefore logical, when they decided to establish a series of military vehicles and plastic soldier figures, to choose this scale. It had the added advantage of being quite close to 1/72, certainly by wargaming stanards of accuracy,
Matchbox military vehicles, many recently re-issued by RoG, are also this scale. So are those made by Fujimi and JB Models, whose range was recently tanken over by Airfix.
In the 1980s, table-top wargaming went into something of a decline, so Airfix decided to re-label their figures and military vehicles as 1/72, a more widely understood scale. Thus, when it was last released, in thelate 1990s, the WW1 tank was labelled as 1/72, but it was actually still 1/76.
When Hornby (a model railway company originally, remember) took Airfix over in 2007, they decided to re.brand the military vehicles and figures as their true scale, 1/76. This also helps to distinguish them from rhw four Airfix military vehicle kits which are actually 1/72. These are the ex-Heller Jeep, Deuce and a Half GMC truck, and LCVP Higgins boat, released to commemorate the 60th Anniversary of ‘D’ Day, and the Bloodhound missile set, which pre-dates the first of Airfix’s other military vehicles, and was intended to be displayed alongside 1/72 scale aircraft.
The other Airfix military vehicle kits which you might logically think would be displayed alongside aircraft, the RAF Recovery, Refuelling, and Emergency sets, and the ex-JB Models Bedford MK Tactical Refueller, are actualy 1/76, as are the RAF. Luftwaffe, USAAF and Modern NATO Grond Crew sets.
Strange.
Cheers,
Chris.
I won’t buy anything “Airfix”–strictly kid’s stuff as far as detail and molding goes, in my opinion.
Hey, I built that little gem in 1980, made a little diorama with it and won first place at a Boulder, Co. hobbyshop contest. It was worth a $25 gift certificate at the shop. I still have the model, even intact after all this time. The hobby shop is long gone, but Airfix survives![party]
We have an IPMS member here in Denver who loves Airfix. He’s actually our chapter president. Great guy (funny too,) and a good modeler as well. Our meeting is tonight, I’ll try not to say that Airfix is “kids stuff” to him, but I probably will. We love to joke with him about his love of Airfix. He indulges our lack of sophistcation concerning Airfix.
Doug
That’s very unfair, Doog - while they’re never going to match Tamiya, Dragon or Hasegawa in terms of quality, fit and detail, and a lot of their products are indeed mediocre and well past their best before, they have made, over the years, some excellent kits. In military vehicles, this includes most of their 1/76 softskins, especially the Bofors Gun & Morris Quad, and the RAF recovery, Refuelling and Emergency sets.
There are also a number of excellent aircraft, including the Short Skyvan:
B-26C:
and 1/48 Hurricane Mk.1:
Cheers,
Chris.
Some of their new 1/48 aircraft (yeah I know this is the Dark Side) are very impressive. The TSR and Canberra series are both beautiful kits of long overdue subjects. And until Academy released their own M3 Lee/Grants (with the now well documented errors) had the nicest of those kits for some 30 years. Nothing toylike on those, at least no more than Revell/Monogram.