Well, to sell models, of course. But that still doesn't answer my question why HB has decided to flood the market with a ton of 1/48 A/C kits where their competitors have already done a splendid job with issues of the same subject.

Here are some examples that readily come to mind.

Why issue P-61 kits when GWH has doubtless created a gold standard with their own offerings?

Why issue TBM/TBF kits when Accurate Miniatures and its re-boxers have likely issued almost definitive versions of the same subject?

Do we really need endless HB 1/48 Hellcat and FW-190 offerings given Eduard's line of such kits and the less fiddly Hasegawa issues?

Another reason I ask this is because these kits rarely get reviewed. It's like they are "out there" but not attracting much interest.

I can understand Trumpeter's strategy a lot better: e.g., a 1/48 Westland Whirlwind.

I am just wondering if anyone else has the same reaction, or whether I am being an ungrateful, grumpy old man. I am grateful for their early F4F and FM-1 offerings, though mindful of some of the errors these kits have, and the mess they made of the FM-2 kit. This makes me a wary purchaser of their products.

Comments anyone? I would love to hear how these kits stack up against the opposition.

Here are my thoughts on the Hobby Boss releases. Firstly there are reviews of the kits out there, you just have to look for them.

The Hellcats, cheap compared to the Eduard and Hasegawa offerings. They do have shape issues though, but for a quick build they should satisfy all but the most rampant rivet counter.

The family of Fw190s and Ta152s they do are decent and once again cheaper than the Eduard offerings. There aren't that many Ta152 kits that I can think of outside the old Trimaster/Dragon kits that are hugely expensive and rare.

Hobby Boss do a great family of Me262s that offer a lot more variants than what you see with Tamiya or the older but much more fiddly Dragon kits.

The Hobby Boss Avenger kits come with wing folding out of the box, unlike the Accurate Miniature kits that required surgery and aftermarket sets to do that.

I really can't work out why they are bringing out a P-61, but then again why do we really need so many Spitfires/Mustangs/BF109s? Rhetorical I know, but I hope you get my drift.

I think overall, Hobby Boss and Trumpeter are giving us kits that for the most are well priced, accurate for the most and more widely available than some of the other manufacturer's offerings.

I have two of the Hobby Boss Me262s and I think they are great kits, smart engineering, good detail and to my eye they look like the real thing.

Thanks for the comments! I'll look further into their offerings.

Grumpy old men like us aren't interested in building another Me-262. We've already bought and built a dozen of them. We'd rather have something a little different - a BV-141, maybe. But for most modelers, planes like the 262 are what come to mind when they think of World War II - they've probably never even heard of the BV-141 and wouldn't recognize one if they saw it. It's a cool airplane, but it's just not iconic like the Schwalbe. And remember, there are so few of us, and so many of them, so even though the 262 has already been produced many times, there's still more money to be made selling new ones than could be made by taking a chance on a new subject.
Look at Classic Airframes - they produced some great kits of interesting aircraft. But there just wasn't enough demand to keep them in business.

Oops, I completely overlooked the fact that the BV-141 was also a Hobby Boss release!

I was pretty pleased to see HB issue the BV 141, pleased enough to order one.

If they could now do the He 70?

There's the Admiral He-70, which I'd like to build one of these days. I understand it's a bit of a challenge, but it's the only game in town.

I'd dispute your claim that most modellers wouldn't know what the BV141 is. In fact a lot of modellers I know may end up buying it.

Please don't take my comments about the Hobby Boss Me262 family of kits as a negative. I think they should be applauded for bringing them out as they are cheap, easy to build compared to the horrible Dragon ones and come in a variety that the bigger companies won't touch.

It is simple economics that dictate what companies bring out. For every BV141 that Hobby Boss sell, they will probably sell twice as many of something more popular.

Classic Airframes did bring out a lot of great subjects, but they were close to limited run kits that for the main.

Possibly Hobby Boss are aiming their kits at the lower end of the market where people will spend $25 on one of their 1/48 kits but not $50 on another makers kit...

I've heard from experienced builders that it's a nightmare.

For the same reason that Ford Motor Company continues to build cars. Chevrolet makes cars. They make lots of cars So by your line of thinking Ford should stop?

And doesn't every model manufacturer have multiple releases of the Me-109? Or the Spitfire? or the Zero? or the P-51? and on and on. Would you rather that Hasegawa be the only manufacturer to release an Me-109 kit? Do you prefer NOT having a choice? Should no one ever be allowed to mold and release a P-61 ever again because there is already a kit of it that YOU like? How special are you?

OK, now I'm finished being a grumpy old man.

Gary

P.S. And you do know don't you that the majority of model kits are purchased and built by people that couldn't tell you the difference between a Mosquito and a Ju-88?

Good heavens, talk about grumpy!

Of course they are free to design and sell whatever they want, just as I am to buy, or not buy. What I was getting at was whether this mass marketing was a good strategy for them. For me the question is how good their kits are, and whether their products are decent competitors, or just also-rans.

I've done some research since the original post and it looks like they do make a better mousetrap with some releases. For example, their Avenger kits have decent folding wing options whereas AM does not. With the number of AM Avengers I have in my stash--and, yes, to this extent it is "all about me"--that does make a difference in any buy-decision I make.

I also think they are smart with their Ta-152 kits, including the short wing C versions, but to me that's more "niche marketing" than just another P-51, or Spitfire, etc. etc. I'm tempted by some of them as well.

This issue pops up regularly.

Why do we have buckets of models of one plane and no kit available of another one.

Most probably because the market for e.g. spitfire kits is larger on its own than the combined market for five lesser known aircraft.

Also be aware that many kits are (as was indirectly confirmed by Revell some time ago) bought for children as a gift. These buyers don't care about accuracy, or exotic models, they want a well known name on the box.

Hi Brian,

Reading the your opening thoughts in this thread I admit to not only understand them but tend to agree with most.
However, and in fairness with HB brand, the evolution curve of their sales pitch has been moving away from their initial simple EZ build snap together kits, crossing into "regular" kits with popular subjects and lately covering some "niche" subjects.

So in a buyer perspective the purchase cost remained affordable, and in a modeler perspective the subjects may have become more appealing...how can we all not like them?

Cheers
Pedro

Brian,
From one old man to another, we kind of think alike, but come up with different conclusions.

I opted not to build the Accurate Miniatures TBM and built the Hobby Boss kit instead after reading several reviews. I found the kit interior very well detailed and the fit nearly perfect. The folding wing issue that Trumpeter had on their 1/32 scale kit was addressed and fixed.



I built the GWH 1/48 scale P-61 2nd boxing, and the kit has some major issue with the glass green houses. I did post on another forum in a thread about the HB P-61s releases as we already had 3 versions from GWH. The conscious of opinion and after reading several build reviews on various sites was that the HB kits were the equal if not somewhat better, and the multitude of glass fit a lot better. My next P-61 will be the Hobby Boss kit.



I've looked at the HB offerings for 2015 and I highly doubt that they will be releasing anywhere near that quantity of kits. As I recall they did the same thing last year.

One series that I've really excited about is their F4U series in 1/48 scale. I have a tremendous interest in that particular aircraft. Currently, Tamiya has a lock on the F4U-1,-1A, and -4D.





Hobby Boss has listed virtually every major variant, and other then 4 previous releases, they're all listed as new kits. At 1st one sees little reason to offer the same variants as the Tamiya kits, but if the wings come in the extended position by default, it's reason enough. There present offerings have some cowl shape issues, and just so so interiors. I'm hoping that both issues have been addressed in the new releases. It's also interesting to note that the kits MSRP is $50 while the Tamiya kits are $35, so they're not cheaper by a long shot.

Since I focus on mostly USA & Allied Aircraft, I can't comment one way or the other on their decisions and kits of other nations regardless of the time period. I'm sure that they've put enough time into these offerings to see a viable market for them.

Joel

Boy, those are nice looking builds. I really will have to look into these kits more.

Joel I just want to mention that just before I started laying colour on my Seafire today (it had literally, not figuratively, cobwebs on it) I happened upon your post.
That shot of a birdcage corsair is a beautiful example of high/lowlighting and served to instruct. Hopefully I came close to the mark. Great work.

On the subject of HB kits. I'd like them to do some more esoteric subjects, as OP mentioned. The scimitar is woefully in need of an injection molded kit. And I think a new CF100 isn't too much to ask. Just off the top of my head.

Well, they are the only one to have a 1/48 Yak-38. The details are simple (sometimes to simple). Its only 25€. I bought a whole truckload of aftermarket stuff, and it wil be great. The hellcat is more 1/38 than 1/48. I hold it next to mo my Eduard hellcat, and sold it quickly. Only advantage is that you have the wingfold. You can not put the wingfold of the Hobby boss onto the Eduard. I tried, and bought the Wolfpack wingfold. And thats also not that good with detail, so i went nuts on it, and detailed it myself. This was a insane job afterwarths...

Hi Brian

Aren't Trumpeter and HobbyBoss basically two parts of the same operation?

All the best

Rowan

Yes, you're right. Sort of like MPM with "Special Hobby" or any other of their brand names: "Azur," etc. I suppose it is hard to say who's really calling the shots.

The recent HB BV-141 could just as easily have been a Trumpeter boxing, validating "my point" about "their" strategy.

Oh well, at least my post helped educate me more about these products.

I decided to purchase the Hobby Boss Avenger Mk I kit (I think the Brits actually called these early birds "Tarpon") when it was offered on amazon.com for the remarkable price of about $35.

I was quite impressed: it's a worthy competitor to the older AM kit. My only real concern is that the side tunnel windows are probably wrong for the Brit version. I am fairly certain they were bulged, and may have been circular. (Need to research that). Still, the kit was very impressive. Now I'm gonna have to choose which comes first when I finally get around to building an Avenger.

Brian,
I built the Hobby Boss TBM-3 when I 1st got back into the aircraft after a few years taking a shot at USA armor. I found the kit to be very well detailed, and no major issues. I did the Atlantic scheme, but would really like to build a replacement or at least another one in a Pacific paint scheme.
Joel