First ever Tank

[meirion658]

Morning all I usually stick to WW2 Aircraft but fancy giving a go at a tank.

Any suggestions of a nice easy build. I'd prefer something from WW2 or the latest tanks.?

Thanks
Meirion

[AlanG]

Anything Tamiya in my opinion. Their Panther and Tiger tanks are easy to build and practice painting/weathering on

[boatman]

HI Meirion well prefer the lastest tanks in my opinion
chrisb

[The Smythe Meister]

Yep,I agree with Alan...
Tamiya for ease of build. :smiling3:
My personal favourite of their's is the 1/35 M48 A3 Patton.
(You can get it for a good price too)

[Guest]

The main suggestion would be to choose subject you actually like the look of. If you look at, say, a Tiger and think “What a clunky, ugly square, unappealing thing” then don’t buy a Tiger kit Ease of assembly probably points to Tamiya, yes, though others aren’t far behind — Takom kits assemble very well too, as do modern Zvezda ones (not their reboxes of older kits), for example. OTOH, stay away from brands like Trumpeter (fit not so great, sometimes many small parts for no apparent reason), AFV Club (many small parts for detail reasons) or Gecko (as AFV Club, except the small parts also include a lot of etched brass), to name a few.

[Andy the Sheep]

I'm joining the previous suggestions: check Tamiya catalogue (on line) or Scalemates and chose the tank you like best.
As an additional suggestion, dismiss the "early" Tamiya kits, as they are too old and they are not exactly "to scale" as they were designed to be motorized.

[tr1ckey66]

This would be my suggestion…
Try the Tamiya M4 Sherman. It’s an easy build and being (mostly) Olive drab in colour you can have fun with fading, washes, weathering etc without the added complication of a 3 colour camouflage finish of say a late war Panther or Tiger. In this way you can have fun experimenting a little and concentrating on trying some techniques. Also, because the Sherman has ‘live track’ the vinyl tracks will look acceptable straight out of the box (after painting them).

Obviously a great deal of this will come down to whether you like the look of a certain tank or not, but from a practical point of view this would be my choice. Tamiya M4s are also relatively cheap!
Paul

[meirion658]

This would be my suggestion…
Try the Tamiya M4 Sherman. It’s an easy build and being (mostly) Olive drab in colour you can have fun with fading, washes, weathering etc without the added complication of a 3 colour camouflage finish of say a late war Panther or Tiger. In this way you can have fun experimenting a little and concentrating on trying some techniques. Also, because the Sherman has ‘live track’ the vinyl tracks will look acceptable straight out of the box (after painting them).

Obviously a great deal of this will come down to whether you like the look of a certain tank or not, but from a practical point of you this would be my choice. Tamiya M4s are also relatively cheap!
Paul

In the middle of building one

[eddiesolo]

If you are used to modelling then have to agree, Tamiya Sherman or Tiger, pretty straight forward builds.

[eddiesolo]

I thought John had one of these is the shop: https://www.scalemodelshop.co.uk/1-3...-6594-italeri/ Italeri are not as crisp as a Tamiya but, they do make a nice model. This would be something different.

[tr1ckey66]

In the middle of building one

Good choice Meirion!
Have fun!

[Waspie]

I'm returning to modelling after a major absence. Always wanted to build a tank but never got round to it! Having worked at Bovington, the home to the UK's Armour Corp I couldn't resist the Challenger 2. (Having had the things deafen me for a number of years). So on a whim I purchased the RyeField CH2 TES version!!! (Before I joined this site).
THEN I read it's not really a good kit for a starter!!!! Hey ho - I have all the time in the world now. So after my Sea King I'll dive into the CH2 and just go for it!!! The working track links I think will be the biggest challenge, (No Pun intended).

[David Lovell]

I'm returning to modelling after a major absence. Always wanted to build a tank but never got round to it! Having worked at Bovington, the home to the UK's Armour Corp I couldn't resist the Challenger 2. (Having had the things deafen me for a number of years). So on a whim I purchased the RyeField CH2 TES version!!! (Before I joined this site).
THEN I read it's not really a good kit for a starter!!!! Hey ho - I have all the time in the world now. So after my Sea King I'll dive into the CH2 and just go for it!!! The working track links I think will be the biggest challenge, (No Pun intended).

Doug and Merrion if you build aircraft you can build afvs tamiya are a good jumping in spot but don't offer any challenges if thats what you want from the hobby ,all the kit manufacturers suggested will give you a start but at the end of the day in Doug's case who was it thought they cold define something as not suitable for starters ,you build aircraft whats the difference you open the box examin the parts study the instructions and off you go using common sense most boxes say something like recommend for 14+ im sure we all went past that along time ago ,oooh it had some flash so what ,dont touch kits from trumpeter you might have a couple of fit issues so what ,dragon seem to have gone out of favour in the past year or so why because people doomed the company for their poor instructions?No such thing as a bad kit just some are better than others just crack on and enjoy your selves its gluing bits of plastic together there's a learning curve to all of it from start to painted finish just ride the curve. Dave
PS is there any truth that tamiya now mark their boxes with 4+adult supervision recommend :tongue-out: :tongue-out3::smiling3:

[deano53]

I just purchased this for my first venture into tanks it was £15 from my local model shop , it doesn’t look too complicated and @ £15 You carnt go wrong for a Tamiya .

[Jim R]

Definitely can't go wrong. It may be an older Tamiya kit but built up it will look like a Panther :smiling: :thumb2: