This has probably been mentioned before, but what do you all think are the best brands in general for armor models (in order from best to worst) It would be useful for many modelers on this site (including me) to know.

ty all

Here is an older discussion on it: best manufacturers, best modern armor, best thing to do is to go to the search function and type in "best" in the armor forum. You will definitely find it there.

Machu-

This is my personal opinion, so please take that into account... others here are bound to have a different order.

Tamiya - (Newer releases that is)
Kits that I have personal experience with that I would HIGHLY recommend are:

Wespe - Superb, well detailed and easy to build - looks great OOTB. Nice rubberband style tracks that actually look the part and are gluable.
Marder III and Marder IIIM - See above... Great Kits!!
PzKpfw IIIL - Really fun to build and looks great OOTB!
StuG III (Early version - the one that doesn't come with side skirts) - Again, easy build and looks great without the aftermarket stuff.
Any of their Panther G's (Early, Late, or Steel Wheel)
Any of their newer Tigers (Initial, Early, Mid, or Late)
I have heard that their King Tigers are good as well, however I hve no experience with any of them.

Dragon/DML - These have a few more cleaning up issues, and the molding doesn't seem to be as crisp as the new Tamiya stuff.... but they are a whole lot cheaper and are well worth the money - good kits are:
StuG III - any one of 'em. Some minor difficulty to get assembled correctly - but not crazy....
Panther A (early, late) - Super kits that rival Tamiya's G's
Panther D - see above - great kit

Italeri - I generally don't build these if I can help it. They do offer a large selection of softskins though... Others seem to love Italeri - so get one and see what you think?

Academy - I only bought one kit - the old PzKpfw IV H (copy of Tamiya's old H) - it pretty much didn't do me any good.... I have heard that their newer stuff is pretty good, so maybe I'll get a new one and see what's shakin'

Alan - UUuugh, the dudes that cut steel for the molds must be heavy drinkers.... Don't expect anything to fit properly. Don't expect the locating pins to line up with the holes they go into. Don't expect to be able to get the model built if you follow the directions in the order that they say in the instructions. I speak from experience - I am building their BIson II now... i've already used half a tube of Squadron putty. The gun carriage doesn't fit into the fighting compartment, and of course I've already glued the top hull to the bottom (just like the instructions told me to)...... anyway - i should quit now....

Others should be able to help you more with Allied kits - I have no idea there

Jeff

Best Armor Kits?

1. Tamiya pretty much leads the pack with the newer kits.

2. DML is treading hard on Tamiya's heels and has a heck of a variity of German kits. The kits releasedin the last year are supurb. Hornisse, Nashorn, Hummel, Panther D and A.

3. AFV Club Sd. Kfz. 11 varients and LeFH18

4. Academy M10, Achilles, M3

Any body else, ya pays yer money an" takes yer chances!

Just my two cents worth.

1..Tamiya cause i believe especially in nowtimes you get what you want and what you pay from, they seem to respect the customer.
2.AFV
3.Academy
4.Italeri but it depends how much patience you have, but they have some good stuff not available elsewhere so , sometimes , i build one of them.
5.Dragon

In general try to build kits from different brands to get experienved, try to scratch in difficult situations is my way of buying, of course avoiding the very bad kits , so you have to listen to the guys here before buying to have a first clue

1 Tamiya and Dragon (the best)
2 Cmk and Skif
3 Italeri (good raport quality-price and a lot of chose, the new relase are very nice!)
4 Zwezda (nice but nothing expecial, it produce some interessing kit like italian army)
5 Icm
this is only my oppinion
regards

Just chiming in... As you may have guessed by now, it really depends on the subject and the age of the product... some of the older Tamiya stuff is pretty short on detail, but the new stuff is top notch.

I find Dragon/DML to be extremely high quality, followed closely by Academy and Tamiya. I like a lot of the Italeri stuff, because the variety and prices are good, but from an "accuracy" point of view, they are a little lacking... still, loads of fun to build, and great fit. I've not tried any recent Trumpeter products, and while I have read that recent releases are far better, the earlier model kits suffered from inconsistant plastic, bad fit, and mis-shappen parts. So if I had to "rank em" I'd go:

DML
Tamiya
Academy
Italeri
ICM

Tristar's stuff is real good too.

I will vote for DML leading Tamiya, Tamiya's stuff are easy to build, and that's about all I get. The details of the newer kits are real good, but the selection is few. Maybe I don't like Tamiya too much is one, they are too easy, and two, the rubber band.

DML comes with nice indi links, so it gives me an option on if I have to get AM tracks, and the selection is awesome, and a bit harder to make than Tamiya's, so it's always more fun.

ICM has some nice subjects too.

One to look out for is that new Japanese company that just launched Luchs late, I have it at home, and I must say it looked like a very good kit in box. Except the Tamiya like rubber band. They mould the 20mm gun tube hollow at the opening, now that's some Plastic Injection tooling achievement. I am still thinking about how did they achieved it... #:-)

First Tamiya, second Dragon.

Well, I am a Tamiya guy especially their new releases. For second place it is a tie between DML and Italeri. Good kits. A close third place goes to Academy and AFV. Great kits but too many of them slight variants of the previous one.
My two cents
DJ

Worst kit,,,, Has to be the russian Maquette, nothing fits on the Marder III I bought

Dave, I have used my amazing MS Paint skills to make a couple of Jpegs to show you how they make the end of the guntube hollow. In the first picture is conventional tooling. You would have to drill this tube out. It is a side view. The arrows indicate the direction the mold opens. The red line is the parting line.
The second picture is a diagram of tooling with a "Loose Piece" or a pull back. The 2 halves of the mold still open the same way as the first but a third piece draws out in the other direction, parallel to the parting line. I tried to color the pull back green and added a small arrow.

Hope this helps.
Shaun




PS, Can you tell I design tooling for a living?

Amazing stuff, Shaun, so it's a two part tooling right, with one part slid back , whilst the upper and lower one opens...I need to relook at the layout of the parts to study further. Always a delight to talk to people doing tooling design, we could sure use you in our engineering department in Hong Kong, or NJ....

Thanks Shaun.