That's a pity, choice is always a good thing, especially where cost is involved.! Al

Curiously, as much of Tamiya's current output is repackaged ICM products, I wonder if their relationship will suffer some 'reverses'...

Given the relative sizes of Tamiya and ICM, and given the financial benefits ICM must reap from partnership with Tamiya, I strongly suspect ICM chose to avoid an unprofitable confrontation. If I were in their shoes, I would do the same thing. Since Tamiya tends to release one variant of a given vehicle and walk away, maybe ICM can repurpose their design work to produce an earlier mark. A lot of modelers were hoping for a Mark II. I hope there is a silver lining for them. -Doug

Sad to hear, you have to wonder about the timing of this. ICM have said that a Matilda IV was in the works for about 2+ years now. It would be interesting to find out how far along the molds and the kit were when Tamiya made their announcement. It certainly would have been nice to see two kits rather than one. Cheers jjumbo

Sad news indeed.

Firstly, I still believe it would have been commercial suicide for ICM to go 'mano a mano' with the Japanese Behemoth. They were correct to cancel the project. Though, therein lies one of the problems. I believe that ICM, if their Matilda had been commercially succesful (and there's NO reason to believe otherwise) then they're the kind of company who WOULD have done variants on the same chassis. We WOULD have seen a Mk. II from them and possibly something like the Close-Support-Howitzer. If DML had done it they would have done every possible variant to get their money back (and then some)- probably including the German BeutePanzer with the 47mm (or whatever it was). With Tamiya having the 'monopoly', that's it. As someone said the other day, it took them 15 years to update their Pz. III whereas there were 4 modified F-15s (or F-16s) in 18 months. That's it. Door closed. A new Matilda in 1/35th scale and the usual suspects will be falling over themselves to praise Tamiya's 'unflinching commitment' to the armor modeler. There is though light in the darkness - the AM people will be falling over themselves to do the modifications, the conversions and, as usual, providing a first-class service to their customer base. That's the REALLY positive part about the current situation!

Hey Jim, It was a 50mm KwK L/42 and it was nicknamed Oswald by the new owners/operators: Oswald Cheers jjumbo

Thanks, I was only 3mm out! That is just SO cool!

Its a shame, I would have bought both.