A fascination with militaria

[PaulinKendal]

As was entirely to be expected, Scale Model World was completely dominated by militaria - probably 90-95% of models at the show were military.

It got me thinking: why do tanks and planes so dominate our hobby?

There were plenty of ex-services folk at the show (as there are on here), and I get their (your) interest completely. But that doesn't account for the dominance across the board.

While I of course respect the service of the military (my dad, uncles and aunts all 'did their bit' during the second war), I have no interest in military modelling myself. But almost everyone else does! Why is that?

In trying to answer my own question, I came to the conclusion it's historic. Obviously, shortly after WWII there was huge interest in all things military - war comics, war films, toy soldiers and playing at war in the primary school playground. And plastic modelling came to the fore at about that time, so it made commercial sense to produce lots of military kits.

Once the emphasis was on militaria, inertia ensured it stay that way. And so it continues to this day. That's the only way I can explain it to myself.

You might think that, despite my lack of interest, militaria is intrinsically fascinating. And so it is, I'm sure. But so are cars, bikes, trucks, buildings and all the other stuff that you can make from plastic kits - but they don't dominate in the way militaria does.

What's your take?

 

[Andy the Sheep]

Paul, don't forget that railway modelling, which is a large branch of the modelling world, is mainly non-military while architectural modelling is almost fully dedicated to civilian subjects. Last but not least, I attended to a local model show dedicated to agricultural modelling (LINK) .

Said so, a possible reason for the dominance of tanks and planes in our hobby, outside of the passion for history, is that militaria offers a very large variety of subjects and not ordinary stuff. I'll try to explain better my point: military subjects are something you seldom see in everyday life while it is possible to see plenty of motorbikes, cars, trucks, airliners and so on while driving to work or going to the grocers's.
Building a F4 Phantom or a SdKfz 251/1 materializes on your bench something you'll never touch in your life. Moreover, while I can rent and drive a Ferrari for one day or fly on a A330 for a fair amount of money if I fancy to concede to my curiosity, I cannot rent an aircraft carrier or a Fokker Eindecker; a visit to a museum would only increase my curiosity ("Don't Touch" warnings are the most spread signs in any museum) just like a roast-beef fragrance increases my appetite.
In other words: what one craves for is what one cannot reach and militaria entices our kid spirit much more than civilian subjects do because the military real things are not within our reach in normal life. Models are the nearest substitute we can have. Even those working at Bovington Tank Museum (or any other similar institution) could be classified as 1:1 scale modellers as their aim is not to bring back the vehicles to their original use; they just re-build them to enjoy the very existence of that object and make it available to the public but it is and will remain confined, even when fully efficient, to the Museum facilities just like our static scale models are confined to our shelves and/or boxes or to a model show/model forum.

Freudianly yours
Andrea

 

[rtfoe]

We have separate shows for other interest and they can be quite big in attendance. They are normally joined in by Cosplay and RC.

Cheers,
Richard

 

[PaulTRose]

i think you are correct

if you think about it when Airfix started, and they were the instigator really, the war hadnt been over that long and the 50s/60s were the golden years of aircraft and tank develpment..........just made sense that thats what they would do most

 

[AlanG]

In the UK yes. But if you go to Japan it is mostly Sci-fi, Gundam and cars

 

[Neil Merryweather]

I think it's the age demographic.
I am in my sixties and grew up with Airfix and War Picture Library- the war was only twenty years ago in 1964-Longer ago than the Falklands is now but it had affected EVERYBODY, and for 6 whole years . Almost every one of my contemporaries made airfix kits as kids, whether they continued it into adulthood or not.
I doubt you will find so many under thirties doing model kits now, and if they do it's more likely to be fantasy or movie related, like the gaming side of things ,which is really the popular hobby of that age group.

 

[PaulinKendal]

Interesting stuff. I can certainly see that Warhammer has taken a big chunk of modellers/potential modellers from upcoming generations. And of course railway modelling is massive - I guess on a par with plastic modelling, maybe even bigger?

Andrea's suggestion that

Building a F4 Phantom or a SdKfz 251/1 materializes on your bench something you'll never touch in your life.

makes sense to me - there is definitely something special about bringing wild and wonderful stuff to 'life' on our benches.

And Alan's point that Japan is not so focused on militaria (even though they manufacture and export tons of the best stuff) reinforces my original idea that it's a throwback to immediate postwar fascination in militaria - we celebrated our war efforts, while Japan de-militarised and turned away from its wartime record.

 

[Tim Marlow]

It also depends on the show. Something like the huge model engineering expo in London (not sure if it’s still held to be honest) would make you think everyone builds traction and other types of stationary steam engines. There was very little military there apart from flying model aircraft last time I went. On the other hand, one of the big model railway shows would do the same, but with a railway slant. I’m sure there are car and boat model shows as well. It’s also a truism that most people build what they see others building because that starts the interest.
You can see that demonstrated in the subsections of the model groupings on display. I bet for every allied tank there was at SMW there were three German tanks on display, because the big cat stuff is just seen as “cooler” than yet another Sherman….. In the railway field, when I started out, every third layout would have been 1930’s GWR. This was due to the virtual saturation of the model press by Pendon Museum, a huge (hundreds of square feet) recreation of the railway passing through Wiltshire‘s vale of the white horse in the age of steam.
An old workmate of mine had a saying that really summed this all up….he just called it “Small boys and Man United”…….in effect, when you are young and green you can be sold this stuff because you simply don’t realise there’s anything else out there
Me, I’m guilty of almost all of this except the inexplicable adherence to the GWR…to me the Edwardian era London and South Western railway was, is, and always will be the king of cool
I blame Victor and commando comics and Airfix toy soldiers for the military stuff, and also for the fact that my military interest hasn’t really progressed beyond 1945.

Bit of a ramble, but there you are…..

 

[Jakko]

if you go to Japan it is mostly Sci-fi, Gundam and cars

And I read that in the USA, until the 1970s, the vast majority of modelling was aircraft and cars, everything else followed a long way behind.