Hey Folks;
I mostly build A/C but since I’m living in an apartment and have limited room I dug up some of the old ESCI 1/72 Armour kits and began to wonder where can I buy & whom makes the best kits in this scale [:D]]
1/72 armor really varies in quality, even within a given manufacturer. It’s probably best to ask here on the forum about a specific kit, when you decide on one.
Revell Germany has quite a few kits out. Their best are their Tigers. They have link and length tracks and pretty fair detail. Builds aren’t too tough. The PzIV I did has very weak brackets for the turret shurzen (the add on steel plates that were put on around the tracks and the turret on many german tanks). Some of their kits (like their Panther and Sherman) are marginal, but still not bad.
ESCI had some kits out. I’m not sure if they are still in production or not. I built one and hated it. Others out here really like them.
Italeri does a few. I haven’t been impressed with them.
Trumpeter has an Elefant and a Ferdinand out. Nice kits. I’ve got the Ferdi, but haven’t built it yet.
Hasagewa has a mess of kits out. Again, the detail really varies from kit to kit, but their big downfall is their tracks. They are one piece vinyl tracks and the detail on them (the tracks) is downright lousy!
The big player out there right now is Dragon. They are releasing new 1/72 kits all the time. The quality really varies. Some of them have diecast lower hulls. Most modelers don’t care for them because they can’t be modified/detailed very easily. And the fit to the plastic parts is often poor. I’ve always been able to adjust the plastic parts to get a pretty fair fit, myself. Most of the kits have one piece vinyl tracks that are detailed beautifully, however, they often don’t fit well. Some are too short and some too long. Also, I’ve had trouble with enamel paint not drying completely and staying tacky. I usually base coat the tracks with Tamiya clear acrylic. They still stay a little tacky, but not as bad.
I’ve got many of their kits and like most of them. The exception being the M1A2 Abrahams. It’s not very well done and the fit is poor.
Their Challenger series is supposed to be pretty good.
I’ve got many of their WWII German tanks and like most of them. The ones that have die cast hulls are marked on the box, so stay away from them, if you don’t want to mess with them.
Their new Tiger I that has molded on zimmerit is a really nice kit.
They are also releasing some of the kits in an “Armor Pro” series (Elefant for one) that has both one piece vinyl tracks as well as link and length tracks.
There is also quite a bit of after market PE and resin out there to detail them.
As for where to buy them, check the web stores. I know Great Models and Squadron have quite a few, and I’m sure the others do too.
Good luck.
The old Esci kits are now being sold with the Italeri label. There are a couple of new Italeri armor kits that are all-new like the M8 Greyhound armored car.
Some of the Revell kits are reboxed Matchbox or Hasegawa kits, but most of them are original Revell kits. Right now they are the tops in 1/72.
As Bill states, Dragon has gone full press into the 1/72 sclae world. Great kits for the most part but some German armor with diecast hulls are not the greatest. The original Dragon Elefant/Ferdinand had very bad tracks, but the Armor Pro ones contain new indy link tracks that look like they will fit.
Eduard/ExtraTech make a real nice series of Sherman and Sherman based kits.
Roden makes a nice JS3 Stalin and the series of 8-wheeled German armored cars.
Mirage just started a line of M3 Grant/Lee kits that are the nicest models of this tank line.
Trumpeter has a small line of 1/72 scale kits, the Elefant, Ferdinand, ZIL-157 cargo and fueler and CA-30 cargo and fueler (same kits different cabs). They also do a real nice LCM 3, better than Dragon’s. Not really armor, but very close. They’ll be another company to watch.
Good advice in the previous two posts. For specific info on individual kits I like to check out this web site.
http://www.ontheway.us/default.htm
When I first started building 1/72 armor I very confused by all the reissued and reboxed kits and couldn’t remember which ones were which. This site helped a lot, the only thing you need to remeber though is that this guy is really strict on scale so he will pan a very good kit because it is not to scale. He also won’t cover anything that is 1/76 scale such as the airfix kits which are labelled 1/72 but are actually 1/76.
I have built kits from both Revell of Germany and Dragon in 1/72nd scale and like both companies. I like the detail on the Revell kits but I prefer the vinyl tracks of the DML kits.
I figured that the Italeri’s 1/72 armour was mostly of the ESCI makings (like most of Italeris current A/C Releases) except for their most newest releases, I do have to say that ESCI did make a really nice M-4 Sherman, and the 3/4 ton truck for the time, and the Tigers I, II and Hunting wasn’t to bad also the Panther was decent too, as for Hasegawa’s I haven’t built their German vehicles but they have some decent details on their kits too
All of the manufacturers metioned above have produced good kits. Ive bought quite a few kits recently and would say that the best new toolings are coming from Revell and Dragon.
The older moulds by Revell are actually old Matchbox kits, and like most of Hasegawas kits are showing there age a bit.
I quite like the Italeri kits as the deatail is good and the cost about half that of Revell, making them good for practicing on.
Some of the kits iv’e built recently can be found at
http://free.hostdepartment.com/e/esvev/Scale%20Models%20Home.html
If you want details of specific kits let me know as ive quite a collection to work on now
Regards
John