Tamiya Entertainment Production presents: Small Soldiers

Jun 01, 2009 2 Replies

Not a remake of the movie, just some wrong scaled US guys...



Some weeks ago I bought this 1/48 box:



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to make a diorama. Yesterday i checked the box carefully and took some soldiers out of it: nothing wrong with the moulding, but the soldiers looked



*really* tiny. I put one of them next to an Hasegawa 1/48 pilot and the difference was clear to the sight. I picked a ruler and measured one standing soldiers:


3.3 cm from the bottom of his boots to the top of his helmet. A quick multiplication:


3,3 cm * 48 = 158,4 cm

with boots and helmet, so that the soldier cannot be taller than 150 cm. This is just absurd, way under the medium height in the '40s. They are at least 10% smaller than expected and, as I said before, the difference is clear to the sight. They make every vehicle look bigger, and a big vehicle looks huge! In fact, since we usually look at men to estimate the unknown size of things nearby, assuming that those soldiers have average height they make vehicles look 10 to 15% bigger than they are. I meant to put them around my Me 262 Mistel to make a what-if diorama, but I'm reconsidering it. I'll wait until the plane is complete to make further tests....



:-(



Frankie


Tamiya's soldiers have always been shrimps. Their 1/35th scale figures have routinely scaled out to about 5'6" or so, which might be average stature in Japan, but very short for a European or American. Gerald Owens

on 6/1/2009 11:06 AM (ET) Venerabile Frakkia wrote the following:

With your math, and our (US) conversion, that would be 5' 2-1/3" tall.

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