In may every year, the Shizuoka Show is held in Japan. Being on home ground, Tamiya uses this to launch a variety of new releases. Here are the three, which i''ve (tentatively) identified as COMPLETELY new releases.



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If you have comments or questions please post them here.

Thanks!

BT 42 very welcome.
Are you sure about the Puma Jim I think it's the old Italeri kit released under Tamiya Logo. The Super Sherman M4A1 is a new Tamiya kit not based AFAIK on the Italeri kit

I'll second Pat's comment about the Puma ... I think it's a reboxing of Italeri's kit, not a new tool. Frankly, I'd like to see them retool their Sdkfz 232.

On reflection, I completely agree with your comments on the Puma.

I'm really doubtful about the IDF Sherman although i'd be delighted to have ny doubts laid to rest. Anyone?

from looking at the box behind the puma it looks like a 1/48 kit not 1/35 kit

From what I saw on one of Hobby Link Japan's videos on Shizuoka 2011, the M1 Super Sherman lower hull and suspension is from previous kits and the upper hull, turret, T54E1 track, and figures are all new.

a 1/48 Puma would be a nice addition to the family, but if its 1/35 scale i doubt it would stand a chance against Dragon's releases, especially if it is a rebox. The BT-42 is cool and unique- it should do well. The figures dont look too bad either. Still, i would expect such a big name to produce a lot more than this....

Dunno where the doubt comes into this. The Puma is clearly marked as1/48th...




Complete with open sponsons? Thanks Gary!

So we'll chalk this up to 2 existing models with new parts and a new figure set (which may, or may not be ICM). Not exactly earth-shattering is it?

I think they finally got around to including parts to close up the sponsons, look at the sprue map shown in the vid, around 45 seconds in to it.

Sponson floors are on the sprue layout

I have the BT-42 on Pre-order from HobbyLink Japan. It's a July release and I can't wait to get my hands on it. I'm not too wild about the figure though. Nothing a resin head won't fix. This is another very cool kit from Tamiya. I'm in the process of building the Tamiya Finnish Stug III ausf. G. It is a joy to build. I hope the BT-42 is as much fun to build as the Stug. The Tamiya new releases may be few and far between...but when they do release something truely new they usually knock it out of the park.

Jeff