I have been searching the internet for some time now, and it seems that most large scale (1/6, 1/8) sites are all out of Europe and England. I am very interested in getting into this aspect of military modeling, but USA manufacturers are hard to come by. Can anyone direct me some places over here?

Thanks for reading.

Great Models carries a line of large scale armour they are made of metal, take a look at their website. they have a link on the armorama homepage at the top of the page

Robert you need to go check this place, if you havn't already.

www.sixtharmygroup.com

Here is another company that makes 1/6 scale armor. I have seen their stuff personally and it is phenominal!!!

www.panzerwerk.com

I too am a large scale armor builder. The community that Scott listed above is an excellent source on what new items/ vehicles are coming onto the scene, I too am a member. There are several other US Based vehicle companies, most can be found as limited release kits.

Listed below are some US based manufacturers

Battle Ready Armor
http://www.battlereadyarmor.com/

Plastic panzers/ Battleground vehicles
http://www.plasticpanzers.8k.com/


Rolling Thunder Tech
http://www.r-c-tanks.com/

Armor hobbies
http://toychestandcollectables.com/shop/ARMOR_HOBBIES.html

Armortek. A UK based company that offers All Metal RC Kits.
http://www.armortek.co.uk/index4.html

I also offer many Resin and Metal detail kits to further detail many of the vehicles that are on the market.
http://www.eastcoastarmory.com

I have also created a post on this forum that has many vehicles that I built from many of the companies that I listed above
https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/115469&page=1

John,

This is great!

I assume that theEast Coast Armor is your site.

I love the Amortek product, but am afraid the pricing is hard to swallow. I will just need to find some way to make it work with the wife. They do not seem to be offering too mcuh though. Alot of their vehicles seem to be discountinued.

Robert,
Yes, ECA is my own website. I started it a few years ago when I started offering many of my own detail parts that I made for my own models.

Armortek models are costly and are made as limited numbers, but many of their models are reissued frequently. You can also find a second hand Armortek model occasionally on ebay, or on their forum. They are also constantly researching and developing new vehicle models. Their models are all made from scale thickness aluminum and steel plates which are laser cut. All of their kit components are CNC, and CAD machined. The Kits themselves are all bolt together assembly. They are heavy (especially the Tiger) but are a lot of fun to drive. Many videos of their tanks have been uploaded onto youtube, you can see all of them by placing in the term armortek model.

Thanks John

Thanks for getting back to me. I appreciate you letting me bug you!

I visited all the links you sent, and even became a member of Sixth Army Group as well. Hopefully, I will learn a lot.

I have searched around, and keep coming back to the same folks. They being Armortek and Mark 1. These seem to have the best thing out there right now.

I know a lot of folks in the machining business, and have thought about making my own. The problem I am having is getting a good place to start design wise and getting accurate dimensions for everything. This would be too expensive of an undertaking trying to scale it off of a 1/16th scale, or 1/35th scale model.

Where do these guys get the design specifications you think?

Robert,
When scratch building a vehicle the sizing up phase is the most difficult. The best recourses that people use to upscale is to find a 1/35th scale plans and to have them blown up at a staples, or Kinko’s. Most modelers then transfer the drawings to sheet styrene, plywood. ect.

The best alternative to scratch building a 1/6th scale vehicle, is to purchase the 1/6th scale M5A1 Stuart from 21st century toys (The Ultimate Soldier). The model is based off of the old Tamiya 1/35th scale M5 Stuart kit. The tank is all injection molded plastic and is a terrific starting point for further detailing. The model can be found in two variants. One static, and the other RC. These vehicles use to be offered in Wal-marts a few years back, but can still be found on ebay. The models are also a lot more affordable than the armortek models, or the Russian made fiberglass vehicles from Mark 1. There are also a lot of resin and metal detail upgrades that are currently available on the market that fill in the detail gaps that the original model missed. The M5 is also a not very large vehicle (compared to other 1/6th Scale vehicles).

Another 1/6th scale affordable vehicle that is perfect for getting your 1/6th scale feet wet are the new 1/6th scale plastic kits from DML. DML currently is offering an unassembled unpainted kit form their Kettenkrad, Kubelwagen, and Pak 36 37mm anti tank gun. All of these pieces are superbly detailed out of the box, and go together like their 1/35th scale counterpart. They have the typical DML quality.

Thanks John