I am typically an armor guy but want to diversify. What is your opinion on the best 1/700 Bismark ?? I was looking at

Academy, Trumpeter, Revell, maybe Meng

Any help would be appreciated

Thank you

Seahawk

Don't forget in plastic the Aoshima, new tooled, and Dragon. There are also resin versions by Samek, HP Models and Pit-Road.

Of all plastic versions, I have owned the Aoshima, Academy, Trumpeter and Dragon and of those I prefer the Dragon one. I have not seen the Meng one yet.

I am currently building Dragon's Bismarck and would recommend it. The kit (mine is the "Sink the Bismarck edition". There are at least 2 or 3 releases of the same basic kit. Mine has 2 Swordfish torpedo bombers, plenty of PE for additional detail, and has weapons, shp's boats, and details sprues form Dragon's German Zerstroyer kits for updated parts. For these reasons I would recommend this particular kit - if it's still available!) I would call Trumpeter's release second. Meng's looks nice but it's a simplified snap-together, pre-colored model made for juniors. Whichever brand you decide on, it will benefit from some degree of AM and 3-D printed details. If you are not in a rush, Flyhawk has announced their own Bismarck release tentatively scheduled for this year. Without doubt this will render all previous 1/700 Bismarcks obsolete trash!

Hello Jeff.
I would agree that the Bismark from Dragon is the best and if it is not available near you try looking for the Italeri World of Warships edition as it is the same kit. Hopefully you can find one of the two. And as Biggles2 said if you are not very impatient wait for the Flyhawk's one. Judging by the quality of their ship kits so far other kits of Bismark would certainly be obsolete at best.

Italeri's release does appear to be a re-box of one of the Dragon editions, but it's a stripped-down version without the new weapons sprues, and NO PE. Plus, it's released at a higher price. Altogether a disappointment. Original Dragon releases might be hard to find. If waiting for Flyhawk is not an option, I would go with Trumpeter or Meng and get a good PE set.

Thank you all very much for your replies, I might just wait and see what the new Bismark looks like. The Dragon kits are out of stock at many places, even Dragons own site.