What is the most popular, or your favorite scale for warships, or ships in general? Why?
Thanks, -60
Oh boy -60… You’ve opened yerself up on this one!![:-^]
Not having done many “ships” I have no other comment at this time.
It has to be 1/350 for me because I think that a proper ship model should be BIG. I would love to see 1/72 scale ships but I don’t think it will be in this lifetime or on this world.
1/96
[8D]
As much as the large scale guys would want those big ships the hands down winner is 1/700. There are hundreds of ship kits available in this scale in all manner of materials (plastic, resin and metal) and from dozens of manufacturers. The reasons are obvious: 1/700 takes up less space, usually costs much less and offers the builder an unbeatable selection of subjects from the whole gamut of steel ships.
Well before, in the past, i build all the scales of u.s. navy ships in plastic that i could find here in Sweden. Now the merchant marin is the case as a nostalgic trip to me. There is not mutch to choose from. There is Revell and Imex in 1/400 - 1/550 scale. But for me that´s ok because before i was a ship collecter. Now i builing only for fun.
Hasse.
This might sound unpopular but: my favorite scale is 1/400. Why?
-I like my battleships and carriers BIG so I consider 1/700 too small
-I live in Germany and the 1/400 Heller kits have been around for decades here so this scale is quite established
-Big ships are just small enough to display (OK my QM2 is too big for my shelves) and small ships are just big enough to feature enough detail (even a german e-boat is still recognizable as a model on its own).
-There are MANY ships in this scale, in fact over 150 and these are ony the injection plastic ones believe it or not… but I have to admit that some of them are collector´s items nowadays.
-I like full hull kits and most of the old Heller and some of the Revell kits have EXCELLENT hulls- I have yet to see a Trumpeter 1/350 kit that has authentic hull lines (look at their Hornet or Essex kits-sorry but I don´t buy this!).
-I like french ships and Heller has many of them.
But…
If I like the subject and the kit is well made, I won´t restrict myself to a particular scale. If I want a Yamato and can´t get one in 1/400 for under 200$, I buy the Tamiya kit. Or a 1/96 Pyro Nantucket lightship as long as it is fun to build!
As I’ve posted before, my favourite scale is more or less anything from 1/72 to 1/250. However the range of kits in this scale is fairly limited, even if you include old and hard-to-find kits, and it isn’t too practical (in terms of the size of the finished model) for building anything larger than a destroyer, so I also build WW1 and WW2 warships in 1/350 and 1/400.
Though it doesn’t appeal to me much, you definitely can’t beat 1/700 scale in terms of the sheer variety of subjects available, in both styrene and resin. Unless you scratchbuild, it’s also the only really practical scale for building a complete, representative collection of ships from a particular navy and/or timeframe - even if you have the space to display them, there just isn’t the variety of subjects available in 1/350 or even 1/400. (Though you could build a fairly representative collection of WW2 Polish ships from Mirage’s 1/400 range)