I looked at that survey we did 3 years ago. Lets see #1 on the list was Prinz Eugen....being done, Takao -done Nelson nope, Baltimore - nope and Arizona, reissued.

Of course Dragon didn't do any of them. Anothr fromn the list was Akagi -done.

Yes it truly is the golden age for platic 1/350 ships,who would have believed all the choices,now Graf Spee on the way,the different U-Boats,all of the IJN Cruisers+Carriers,just don't have the room and money,but wiil keep trying !!

So what's that say, Dragon doesn't give a toss what is wanted by the ship building community, but the other manufacturers go through the 'Dragon want list' and build them. Interesting concept!

Well Dragon may not pay us any attention even though they presented the survey to us, but they do stay alert to the Armor folks. Trumpeter does pay attention to us, and I am pretty sure the Japanese manufactures are not, they are just upscaling their 700 ships and super-detailing them for their own audience.

I guess we will just have to continue down the path we have taken for so many years. Live with what we get and keep wishing for more.

The ideal situation to be in, would be as a new guy to ship modeling. With all the subjects available at the moment, you'd never want for any subject for a long, long time.

Speaking of Trumpeter listening to us, I heard through the grapevine that they are to release a 1:350 scale HMS Nelson?...is this accurate?...I only ask because I was planning to scratch one up in that scale ....am hesitant to start the project if they are going to release the kit ....same thing happened to mme with the Tamiya Matilda kit ...

HI Jim!

Well, that's the scratchbuilder's curse: once you get going or complete a build, a major manufacturer announces the release of the same subject in injection-molded form. I kitbashed a 1:32 P-40E back to a P-40B and about a year later the Trumpeter kit came out. My effort scaled very closely to the new kit, so that particular instance was gratifying to me!

--Karl

I do know that Trumpeter has a LIttorio in the works. Something that has never been done in injection beyond the old 1200 stuff from the 60's. In keeping with their European Battleships theme I would venture a guess that within a year or 2 we'll hae a Nelson / Rodney out as well.

that is bittersweet news ........I love the Nelson ...am/was looking foreward to doing her in 1:350....have the Tamiya 1:700 kit and PE as a prequel to this end...If Trumpy builds it Ill probably buy 2

I think we need to start a updated survey we know what's out and what is due out why not?

Call it a Trumpeter survey or whatever, My votes would be 1 The Twins (Sharnhorst Gneisenau), And with Graf Spee coming Maybe the Exeter, Achillies and Ajax, Rodney, and some British crusiers and German crusiers.

The Dragon survey was actually requested by Dragon. They talked with Rui and told him they were looking at entering the serious 350 scale market and gave a bunch of stuff they were considering and we voted on it. I know Trumpeter monitors this site as that is how I found out they were working on the Littorio.

I know but they wimped out so we can start a new survey

START ONE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'll gladly participate

What makes you think they wimped out?

So what happened to the K.M. Prinz Eugen?

HMS Repulse was just another British fleet unit famous for being sunk.

andy

The Eugen is coming

and it looks like Tracy knows sometrhing we don't

Well, for one, Dragon had started work on an Eugen. It was still fairly early on in design when fairly credible information surfaced that Trumpeter had one nearing completion. This was about 2-3 months before the news came out to the general population. That pretty much killed that project, unfortunately.

More I can't say, but in light of the Benson/Gleaves and Gearing kits and some other things coming out in the future "wimp" is not a term I would use.

Dragon has just gone in a direction they choose. It makes sense they would drop a project when they know somebody else is going to beat them to market.

They currently are making some nice ships, I for one just wish they would mix things up a little.

I would love to see more WW1 subjects in plastic, 1/700 of course.

Tracy, Wimped out is small ships in a big scale Dragon has excellent kits but they arn't beating Trumpeter, Revell or even Academy as far as ship models go.

2 x US Destroyers is not a 'Revolution in 1:350 ship modeling' that they advertised a year ago. Maybe their quality has improved over their earlier modern kits, but not variety of subjects. For pure volume of interesting subjects, Trumpeter wins hands down, followed by evenly by Hasegawa, Fujimi and Ashoma. Even Pit Road has released more 1:350 subjects than Dragon. Personally, I think they've 'wimped out'

Could you try that sentence again without the beer but with proper punctuation and spelling? Otherwise you're leading me to think that you're saying somehow that Academy's one ship model (Oliver Hazard Perry) is greater than the four or five Dragon put out in the last year? If that's your opinion, cool, I'm fine with that, but your sentence(s?) are unclear enough I'm not sure what you're trying to say.