This topic contains 144 replies, has 13 voices, and was last updated by 
mage 6 years, 3 months ago.
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Evilstu , 1/48 is more popular aircraft scale ( 1 inch to 48 { 4 feet } ) than tank scale , but its also a rail road scale . Real easy to bash out some scratch buildings and stuff when its an inch to 4 ft . So back in the late 60s , companies started making vehicle and tank kits . And like all early models ( lets say pre 80s ) the idea of scale was fluid ( like 28mm true vs heroic ) . But you could have cool train layouts or dioramas tying together an airfield , vehicles and a train . The go to 1/48 tank kits now adays are Tamiya and Hobby Boss , with a few single kits amoungst various other companies . IRC Hobby Boss kits ( KV I s / T-34s ) have interiors , hard to see through the hatches but awesome if your kit bashing wrecks . Tamiya has maybe 40 kits in their line , everything from your BMW bike with side car to Sturm Tiger , and a new Churchill Croc , as well as some troop sets . Top – Tamiya 1/48 Firefly / bottom – Bolt Action 1/56 M4 Sherman
Linburger , OK , so no vehicles , well you could always build a few to use as scenery or objectives . Think of the scene in Band of Brothers when they attacked the Artillery position , You could use artillery kits as scenery to make that mission much more epic than just attacking a tench . Plus you could even use a 1/48 scale plan as a downed fighter for a rescue the pilot mission .
Linburger , I think its up to personal choice . Although 1/48 tanks look good with some of the BA plastics , if you have Perrys’ or Black Tree , Empress , etc , it can be hit and miss . While 1/48 kits are more detailed than most BA plastics , if you know a bit about the tank your building and have a little bit of skill and a decent spares box , you can build fantastic models . Rubicon , which is a newer 1/56 -28mm plastic model company has some very well detailed tank and half track kits , they have also branched out into plastic crew sets , anti tank guns , pewter crew kits and resin personalities ( Patton / Monty , etc ) and some vehicle stowage . My favorite kits built out of the box are my Rubicon ones although their tracks aren’t the best detailed , but I can live with that. My fav BA kits are the Pzr III , KV I/II and JS III and I did a lot of detail work on them . If I had known about Rubicon sooner I would have bought their T-34s ( I have 9 Ba T-34s ) as well as their Pzr IV ( I have 7 BA IVs ) . Crew figures are hit and miss with the BA kits having a variety of sizes . Although Rubicon didn’t have crew in the beginning , or even all crew hatches open , they now supply crew ( some kits like the M-10 tank destroyer you get both US and Brit heads ) , and hatches can be built open . Example Rubicon SU-122 / 85 . This kit can be built as a SU-122 howitzer or SU-85 tank destroyer , you get all the parts for both upper hulls , by putting it together carefully you can swap them out giving you 2 vehicles for the price of one . Here’s two of my three
As well Rubicon have a few kits which allow you to build ONE of several variants , for example the Stug III has 3 different roof layouts , 2 different machine gun mounts , gun mantlets , 3 – 75mm gun barrels and a 105mm howitzer . And the Tiger I gives you regular rubber or steel wheels as well as various bibs and bobs so you can build an early / mid / or late Tiger I . As I have BA late Tiger I built mine as an early , sort of like the Bovington Tiger
Sorry , hard to stop talking about tanks
One last comment on 1/56 figures if I may , I had go and find some to photograph . BA / Italeri German Commanders Left to right – Pzr III , Pzr IV , Tiger I,
Tiger IIGerman troops : blue – Bolt Action , green Tamiya 1/48, red Rubicon
Brit tank commanders : orange BA / Italeri Churchill commander , blue , BA Brit infantry conversion , green 1/48 Tamiya
And don’t forget all the kit will be sized to match the figures . So although the packs might work , its a canvas bag it could be stuffed to bursting or almost empty , things like water bottles , rifles and helmets will look out of place . Ba blue , Tamiya 1/48 green
When I use Tamiya’s figures , I tend to cut a few mm out of their legs to bring their standing height down . We all know guys who weigh in at 230 ponds and guys the same size who tip the scales at 150 , but we know very few guys , besides Gerry , who are over 7 feet tall
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