Greetings fellow model ship builders.
As many of you would know it is common nowadays for manufacturers to release similar subject matter within a relatively short time, and the recent releases of the HMS Dreadnought are no exception.
Zvezda won the race to get the 1/350 Dreadnought to market first followed sometime later by the prolific Trumpeter issue.
Now hands up how many of you have the Dreadnought on their wish list but are not sure which kit to get? Well wonder no longer as I have both kits in my possession and I was thinking I could do a comparison between the two just to try and discover which is the better buy.
I have already had a preliminary look at both and the Trumpeter version appears to have it all over the Zvezda version being cheaper to purchase and having many more parts to assemble.
But I don't want to jump the gun and come to a conclusion without a thorough investigation of the two kits.
One other interesting fact is that Trumpeter have a few more versions planned according to their 2013 cattle dog (Aussie for catalogue).
Leave a reply if you have any interest.
Cheers
Warren

G'day Warren! I'm putting my hand up! I've had this ship on my wish list for sometime now&have been debating which kit to purchase. I'd love to see you do a comparison of the two kits. I've got a couple of Trumpy kits already so I am thinking of getting the Zvezda kit, but will it be as good as the Trumpy one?

Will start the job today Russell. You may be surprised by the results.
Cheers mate
Warren

Greetings once again.
Well I have been hard at work investigating the two kits and have come up with the following facts. None of this stuff can be disputed. No subjective stuff, all objective stuff.
The Zvezda box is much bigger than the Trumpeter box and both boxes are very sturdy, more than adequate to protect the contents from even the most forceful postal service.

What’s in the box?

Instructions

Zvezda
8 Pages
21 Steps

Trumpeter
28 Pages
41 Steps

Sprues
Zvezda
7 Sprues
Sprue A – 2 parts
Sprue B – 33 parts
Sprue C – 78 parts
Sprue D x 2 – 91 parts
Sprue E – 17 parts
Sprue F – 1 part
Decals
Flag

Trumpeter
10 Sprues
3 PE Frets
Sprue A – 29 parts
Sprue B – 47 parts
Sprue C – 30 parts
Sprue D x 2 – 102 parts
Sprue E – 35 parts
Sprue F – 27 parts
Sprue J – 6 parts
Sprue K – 2 parts
PE-A – 83 parts
PE-B x 2 – 104 parts
PE-C – 11 parts
Decals
Anchor Chain

That is what is in each of the boxes. The Zvezda kit has 313 parts whereas the Trumpeter kit has 686. In parts count the Trumpeter kit is way ahead.

The Zvezda sprues are all in separate plastic bags except the two D sprues, the only thing is that none of the bags are sealed and any part that may escape from a sprue is free to roam around the box.

Each of the Trumpeter sprues is also in a plastic bag but these are all sealed to prevent dissident parts from escaping captivity.

Dimensional Accuracy.
That is accuracy that I can accurately measure before anything is glued together, so that means basically the length of each model.
Both kits have divided their hulls in half and the only way to get a waterline model is to hack the hulls apart using knives or other cutting tools.

The original ship was 537ft long (160.6m). I work in metric so I will be using the 160.6m figure. It did not say if that was at the waterline or overall so I will assume it is overall length.

In 1/350 scale this works out to be 458.5mm long. The Zvedza hull is 456mm long and the Trumpeter hull is 461.3mm long. So the Zvezda hull is 2.5mm short and the Trumpeter hull is 2.8mm too long. Pick your poison.

These dimensions may change slightly when the hulls are assembled.

As you can see from the photo the Trumpeter hull is definitely a few mm longer than the Zvezda hull.
As you can also see from that picture both the kits have their hawse pipes open which saves you doing it yourself.

In this picture you can see the differences in the Zvezda (bottom) and Trumpeter (top) hulls. The detail on the Zveda hull is a little softer than the Trumpeter hull.

Neither have drilled out portholes. Both have holes to locate the torpedo net booms.

You may also notice that the Zvezda plastic has like a swirl of different colour plastic through it, like a choc swirl ice-cream but using tasteless grey plastic. The Trumpeter
kit is moulded in their usual light grey, well usual for ships anyway.

One more thing for this installment, price... These are the cheapest prices I could find for each on the internet using sites I know to be honest and reliable. You may be able to get them cheaper on some super-sale but here are the lowest prices I could find.
Zvezda - $52.82 + postage
Trumpeter - $36.01 + postage (I actually bought mine from here)

So there you have it. So far it would appear that Trumpeter offers incredible value for money including PE and an anchor chain for a lower price than the Zvezda kit.
BUT will this price advantage be enough for the Trumpeter kit to be considered the better buy? We will look more deeply into the details of both kits next time.

Same bat time, same bat channel..

Cheers
Warren

Interesting comparison of the two kits Warren,
I think at this point in your "head to head" I would choose for the Trumpeter offering, this based on the detailing and not the parts count, (Dragon also over-engineer their models, stuffing the boxes with mind-boggling numbers of parts). Be interesting to see the next part of this article.
Julian

Hi Julian.

I have around 70 Dragon tanks in the stash so I know all about those part counts. Most are too hard to get everything back in the box if you take it out!

I am with you at the moment but we will see with a few photos of various parts.

Cheers mate
Warren

Hmmm, very interesting the Trumpy kit just seems to have the edge on the Zvezda kit at the moment-but will the underdog come out on top?

Hmmm.. Let's see how they both fare after this part of the comparison..
I present to you honourable Ladies and Gentleman the first piece of evidence in the case, one of the main turrets
First we have the Zvezda turret,

Next the Trumpeter version

As you can see the sights etc are all moulded onto the turret with the Zvezda turret whereas they are separate items on the Trumpeter turret. The Trumpeter turret also has the texture on the roof of the turret that the Zvezda turret misses. The ladder on the front of the Zvezda turret it more pronounced than that on the Trumpeter version.
Exhibit B - Funnels

First up the Zvezda funnel, smooth except for some strange looking texture on the plastic that looks like it is caused by the mould not being cleaned up properly after its manufacture.

Then we have the Trumpeter funnel which has some surface detail included.
Next up we have the bow area of each of the competitors,

First up the Zvezda one,

Then the Trumpeter one. Those moulded ridges on the Trumpeter version are missing from the Zvezda hull. I am not commenting on accuracy or otherwise, just what you get with each kit.
Next we have a picture of the area around the main turret on the forecastle of the Zvezda kit

The the Trumpeter version

Notice how much more of the deck fittings area moulded onto the Zvezda deck. Also notice that both have good reproductions of the deck planking.
Next up we have the anchor chain hawse pipe area of the forecastle, first up from Zvezda,

Next up from Trumpeter,

Notice the more detailed Trumpeter moulding.
Then we have an area of the hull sides that I tried to photograph of the same area, firstly Zvezda

Secondly Trumpeter

The shapes of the hulls are pretty consistent, except for this area, first up Zvezda,

Then Trumpeter,

Again, I don't know which is more accurate.
Last up for this part of the comparison, this is a photo of one of the little hatch covers that are along the sides of the ship, the Trumpeter version

Notice the extra detailing of the bracing of the door and the eyebrow above it.
That's it for now. I have lots more photos to upload but that is enough for today's installment of Dreadnought v Dreadnought.
Until we next meet..

OK. now I will post some general photos of pieces on the sprue. First up from Zvezda,







Then we have some of the Trumpeter kit,


Many sprues are wrapped like this to protect delicate parts.





And something that the Zvezda kit just hasn't got, PE included, three sheets of it.






In my very humble opinion I believe the Trumpeter kit poos all over the Zvezda kit (can I say that here?). Just the PE alone would make it worthwhile, but it also has many more parts than the Zvezda kit, this translates into probably spending more time on the kit. This bumps the value up even higher for the Trumpeter kit.
Fans of the HMS Dreadnought should also note that Trumpeter has two more versions in its 2013 catalogue, 1915 and 1918 versions. Looks like happy times ahead for Dreadnought fans.
Just a note that I have the Pontos Detail-Up set for the Zvezda Dreadnought which should bean interesting build.
Thanks for stopping by and looking,
Cheers
Warren

Well! It looks like the Trumpy kit takes 1st prize! Which is kind of a shame really-Having worked in the toolmaking industry for over 15years now, I can honestly say that for Zvezda to bring their kit up to the level of the Trumpy kit would not take that much work. Considering they're both marketed at a similar price, most people will purchase the Trumpy kit, potentially putting Zvezda off investing in anymore major 1/350 kits. The downside to this is the modelling community lose out on having another manufacturer in the marketplace