[GZG] Re: 25mm scale armour - Plastic Kits

I know 1/48th scale is not quite right for 25mm scale
figures but it is as good as you will get for plastic
kits and slightly too big is not bad as they look big
and impressive.

1/48th is the coming scale for armour with new kits
from Tamiya and others. Unfortunately the Tamiya kits
are relatively expensive, proper kits with lots of
pieces and only of WW II subjects. However there are
cheaper alternatives

A Chinese company, it seems to be both Zhengdefu and
Kitech do a wide range of approximately 1/48th scale
kits of modern tanks, AFVs/IFVs and some 8-wheeled
vehicles. Everything is built on one of two motorised
chassis, one for tracked and one for wheeled so the
running gear is the same for each type of vehicle
hence the variation is scale to match the size of the
chassis.

I found the detail to be, surprisingly, better than
for the equivalent Academy kits which could be a
little soft though bear in mind the only 1/48th scale
Academy tank kits I have are the M-60 and the
Challenger I with an old Panther (the best of the
three until a long ago misguided attempt to turn it
into a blower panzer) so others might be better.

They are quite cheap and sometimes easy to find – it
seems to be glut or famine and for a while I made a
point of buying all I saw until I had a nice big box
of them. Usefully they do some Japanese and French
tanks that are unlikely to be recognised by anyone who
is not French, Japanese or an anorak (unfortunately
many wargamers are – I am).

Airfix also had an Airfix Junior range of Heller
originated kits with two very nice French based
armoured cars. The hull is the same for both but one
has two axles and the other three. The former ha a
slightly dodgy missile turret with two side mounted
missiles and the latter a rather nice turret with a
long barrelled gun. Detail is slightly soft and the
plastic a little odd but there is a lot of potential
here. These seem to be getting hard to find, I only
ever saw them in one shop in Belfast (The Dungeon or
Modellers' Nook) and he is good at producing strange
things (and charging too much for them).

There are websites out there with better conversion
articles than anything I can do, those by the Salute
crowd are excellent. The link, as if anyone needs it,
is:
http://www.salute.co.uk/slammers3/index.htm
Evergreen styrene, particularly the tubing and
textured plasticard from Evergreen and Slaters are
your friends as is the brass tubing and rod from KS
Metals and the various detailing sets from Tamiya,
Academy and Italeri.

I should also point out that my FLGS carries Evergreen
styrene, I used to find it very hard to find so I
think it is worth posting the link.
http://www.netmerchants.co.uk/

One thing I would like to try is a remote gun mount
like the Stryker MGS and various earlier light tanks.
This should be fairly easy to do.

Michael

      ___________________________________________________________
Yahoo! Answers - Got a question? Someone out there knows the answer. Try
it
now.
http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/ 
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
http://lists.csua.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gzg-l