RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

Cruiser133 wrote:

billpe wrote:What Tom says - Tamiya always look after Japan first. Remember though there last kit before this was the IS2. They'll build what they can sell. It's not like HL, which can knock together a cheap ABS kit based on a standard chassis and sell them as toys for 150 quid. The Tamiya Leopard 2 is a £700 kit.

Would I buy one of these Type 10s? In the future maybe, but I need a new HOTAS first! I'd have much preferred the Type 74. In my mind that is one of the best looking tanks ever produced.

Crispy wrote:I always thought the Leopard 2 was an odd choice as it hasn't really seen a proper tank battle in reality or as well known as the modern US or Brit tanks AFAIK?
.

The Leopard 2 is very well known though. 3800 built and exported all over the world. Based on the Leopard 1 which was similarly very well exported. Challenger II, 400+ built and exported to Oman and there is no interest from BAE to build or export more of them. Oddly enough this was because every time they tried to sell them, the competitor was the Leopard 2 and people bought that instead. Which one is better is left up to the experts but I don't see Tamiya making a 1:16 Challenger II kit as it probably wouldn't sell very well. Niche tank for a niche market.

Where I think they should look is a Centurion, as that I think would sell pretty well the world over.

According to Deagel.com, the Abrams "has been exported to the Armies of Egypt (M1A1), Saudi Arabia (M1A1 and M1A2), Kuwait (M1A2), Australia (M1A1) and recently Iraq (M1A1). Roughly 10,000 M1 Abrams main battle tanks were produced for the US Army, the USMC, Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia."
Almost 2.5 times more than the Leopard. I am not buying the copyright excuse when you have so many copies flooding the US market in various scales and fidelity. A curious move by Tamiya when clearly the Abrams would be a more logical choice given, I assume, the US market is many times larger than Japan.

Cruiser133 wrote:

billpe wrote:What Tom says - Tamiya always look after Japan first. Remember though there last kit before this was the IS2. They'll build what they can sell. It's not like HL, which can knock together a cheap ABS kit based on a standard chassis and sell them as toys for 150 quid. The Tamiya Leopard 2 is a £700 kit.

Would I buy one of these Type 10s? In the future maybe, but I need a new HOTAS first! I'd have much preferred the Type 74. In my mind that is one of the best looking tanks ever produced.

Crispy wrote:I always thought the Leopard 2 was an odd choice as it hasn't really seen a proper tank battle in reality or as well known as the modern US or Brit tanks AFAIK?
.

The Leopard 2 is very well known though. 3800 built and exported all over the world. Based on the Leopard 1 which was similarly very well exported. Challenger II, 400+ built and exported to Oman and there is no interest from BAE to build or export more of them. Oddly enough this was because every time they tried to sell them, the competitor was the Leopard 2 and people bought that instead. Which one is better is left up to the experts but I don't see Tamiya making a 1:16 Challenger II kit as it probably wouldn't sell very well. Niche tank for a niche market.

Where I think they should look is a Centurion, as that I think would sell pretty well the world over.

According to Deagel.com, the Abrams "has been exported to the Armies of Egypt (M1A1), Saudi Arabia (M1A1 and M1A2), Kuwait (M1A2), Australia (M1A1) and recently Iraq (M1A1). Roughly 10,000 M1 Abrams main battle tanks were produced for the US Army, the USMC, Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia."
Almost 2.5 times more than the Leopard. I am not buying the copyright excuse when you have so many copies flooding the US market in various scales and fidelity. A curious move by Tamiya when clearly the Abrams would be a more logical choice given, I assume, the US market is many times larger than Japan.

Tankie wrote:A couple of points: leopard 2 is made by krauss maffei wegmann, nott krupp. Also you can't copyright a likeness so any company could make a model if they had access to the real thing or even well scaled pictures. The issue would be that brands are strongly protected, so although you can market a scale model of a tank you might not be able to say on the box what it is. Examples are that mercedes, opel, continental do not allow their brands to be used by military model manufacturers.