Oh Boy, Another Tiger

Modeling, like any other human activity, is subject to fad and fashion. Remember the 1960s when spacecraft models were hot? They were fashionable then, but today, admitting that you build spacecraft models is a bit like admitting that you still wear platform shoes and polyester slacks.

"Oh," they say. "You're one of those niche modelers."

Every year Fine Scale Modeler has a "five most-wanted kits" contest, where the consuming public has a chance to suggest to the various manufacturers what new models should be made. I almost dread these things. What manner of obscure German tank is going to make the top of the list this year? I ask. Oh boy, a steel-wheeled late-production Tiger E, as though there aren't enough damn Tiger models already.

Every year I dutifully draw up my list, knowing full well that it's entirely futile. How many other votes for a 1/48th scale Spirit rover or Lunar Rover, or a good accurate Apollo CSM/LM, do I think they'll get? As an example of how unpopular spacecraft modeling is, there's only one category for spacecraft, and it is usually dominated by science fiction subjects, while I think there are three armor categories, one for each of the major scales (and all of them, most likely, dominated by increasingly obscure subtypes of German vehicles).

A while ago I went to my local hobby shop. Actually, it's been quite a while ago, but never mind. The DML 1/35th scale Maus super-heavy tank model had just come out, and the "Panzer Lobby" had accumulated at the counter to ogle the contents of said kit. I couldn't help but listen in as they tried to impress one another with their encyclopedic command of Maus lore - its cushy ride, its 5.1 surround-sound stereo system, its ice-water dispenser, its ability to wipe out entire armies of those stupid smelly Russians with a single blow.

But they kept pronouncing its name Maws, and clearly believed that it had something to do with the Maws of Death. Entirely lost on them was the fact that Maus is pronounced mouse, and indeed means mouse, and was an ironic name German tankers foisted on the vehicle because of its immense size and clumsiness. Also lost on them was the fact that only a handful of them were built (five, as I recall) and there isn't any evidence that they were ever used in combat.

So there is is. We get a brand-new kit of a tank that wasn't mass-produced and never saw action, but we don't get a kit of a spacecraft that carried men to the Moon, or which is currently exploring Mars.

Well, time for me to go put on my platform shoes and polyester slacks, I guess.