Tamiya Report

By Michael Benolkin

 

Tamiya's pavilion was a hive of activity, centered around their new line of radio controlled 1/16 Tiger tanks. Each of the Tigers on display were modified with the new combat module that enables your main gun accuracy to be signalled. Three successful shots on your opponent and their RC controls are disabled. The same technology that the US Army uses in their mock battles has now been miniaturized and is available for your own back yard campaigns.

One other bit of news, the highly anticipated 1/32 A6M5 Zero kit has been delayed. It seems that the Mitsubishi technical drawings for the A6M5 series had not been updated during the aircraft's manufacturing, as there were a number of engineering changes accomplished on the production line that did not get reflected in the original blueprints. I am told that Mr. Tamiya considers this project to be a matter of national pride, so nothing less than an accurate model will get released. After several trips to museums around the world, the design team has now revised the kit design and the molds are being re-tooled. Kits will hopefully be released in the first quarter of 2001.

As usual, Tamiya is rather hush-hush on their future releases, but on display in Tamiya's pavilion include:

1/16 Scale

1/35 Scale

1/32 Scale

1/48 Scale

1/72 Scale