Listen shipbuilders and listen good . Why is it that ALL the companies will do this . Release models of Fletchers , gearings Battleships , carriers out the wazoo . But , try to find any of the unsung ships that support them !
You have a few ( Very Few ) in 1/700 .What about the rest ? I think a dio of a Midway and a Gearing refeuling with the Tanker in between would be nice .How about a Forrest Sherman and Gearing taking on Ammo or Food ? There are also , except for Revell’s box scale stuff no good APA-AKA type ships .
This is an area of the naval fleets that everyone seems to ignore .At least I can get a W.W.-1- Collier in paper . Problem , It’s 1/250 . So you see a whole lot in military is missing . Why ? They have made a big deal about the U.S.S. Whatever Liberties .They weren’t the only ball game out there . Where’s the Victories ?
How bout real good Hospital and Troop ships ? Nuff Said . T.B.
Unfortunately, most of the history surrounds the flattops and accompanying task forces. Same with aircraft. The most modeled aircraft seem to be the 109’s, 51’s, F4U and F6F’s. You see more and more variants every year because they sell. I suspect there is a market for auxilaries, albeit a smaller one. The gun platforms in whatever size and scale will always outsell the support hulls. They just don’t see any recovery of tooling costs in producing them…
unfortunately sales drive product release. If a potential release does not meet expected returns…no release. Support ships just don’t have the wow factor. I’m not sure there are enough of you out there to warrant the expense of producing a kit of that type. At the end of the day its still a business , and they need to make a profit. We all have kits we would like to see but that are not likely to see production. Myself, I’d like to have a 1/200 modern carrier ( Bush, Regan ) . I like the big stuff. lol Happy building!
So true. It is a business. For the less popular subjects you need to go to the cottage industry resin kit sources. Even in the injection molded business there is a hierarchy. Airfix, Revell, Tamiya and the like gear up for large production runs. Smaller firms, like those in Eastern Europe and similar places, do smaller runs with lower capital costs and hence rarer subjects.
At least the paper-card kits allow the modeler the option of reprinting the kits at a different scale than the basic kit. For example, I reprinted the JSC 1/250 German Large Cruiser (Battlecruiser) in 1/350 by reducing the image by roughly 76%. It worked out perfectly! So, that WWI Collier in 1/200 scale can easily be printed at 1/700. I know that HMV has an extensive line of non-warships. Check them out. There might be something there.
I do understand your frustration, though. I have the same feelings about sailing ship kits.