It occured to me today that one of the most pivotal things that has effected the development of out hobby was Communism – or rather the demise of it.
Modelling as we currently know it ( and I’m refering to 1/35 scale modelling here ) has been around some forty odd years now but in the first three quarters of that time we had the likes of Tamiya, Monogram, Hasegawa, Italeri, Frog, Heller, Airfix, and a few others that have faded into the mist. Japanese and Western European for the most part, and during theat time the hobby never really grew. It meandered along, no one really got bent out of shape about accuracy, good enough was good enough. We made do with what was out there and never wondered if there would ever be an Ausf.F of something, we just wondered if there would ever be the something in the first place.
But in the past ten years or so we’ve seen a huge surge forward. Accurate kits abound and the new manufacturers in the game try to make them better and better and to create more and more, no longer is six or so releases a year good enough, now it’s more like six a month … from each. Now we not only have the something and the Ausf.F of something, now we have the Ausf.F Early Production with Stadtgas, ostketten, and a command aerial and if we’re not happy with that we can throw a set of Friuls, a PE set and a turned barrel at it. All without leaving home.
And which manufacturers is it that’s doing this ? It’s Dragon, Trumpeter, MiniArt, Masterbox, Bronco, Hobbyboss, IBG, ICM, Zvezda, Tristar ( and probably a couple of others that I’ve missed ). Not to mention the after market manufacturers like Eduard, Voyager, Griffon, Friul, and RB Model who have made photo etch and turned metal barrels almost a standard feature on most serious modellers kits. Yes I know that IBG and Zvezda aren’t the cream of the crop yet but have you looked at DML’s earliest kits ? Most were Gunze Sangyo moulds anyway. Who knows where ARK, Alan and RPM will be in ten years time.
Which of course illustrates my point, all those manufacturers are from countries that not so long ago lived behind the iron curtain, many most likely run by people who grew up with communism. Now that curtain is drawn and we should count ourselves lucky that so many of them chose this hobby to service, because we truely have benefitted by the fall of communism don’t you think ?
