"Verlinden 1:48 scale issue, something's off!" Topic

Has anyone else run into issues with some of Verlinden's 1:48 stuff?

I am currently working on a 1:48 scale Tiger tank diorama and decided to mix AFV Club's Tiger with Tamiya's Panzer Grenadier/crew set. I also thought I could confidently add some 1:48 Verlinden German soldiers.

Well, to my dismay it looks like the Verlinden figures are just too bulky and maybe even not 1:48.

Here's a pic. of all the 1:48 figures side by side:

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The Verlinden guys are the two soldiers in the great coats. I mean maybe it's because the sitting guys have their legs bent and drawn up it makes them look smaller, I'm having a hard time telling.

In this picture because of the perspective the shot was taken they all look fine together, but it's a deception:

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Here they are next to the Tamiya standing figures, and they all look much more compatible. I get that the great coats are thicker coats and so the figures would look bulkier and fatter than the other guys:

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So I'm having difficulty if I'm just imagining this or if it's an actual issue. The Verlinden guys look slightly bigger than 1:48 to me!

In your first photo they look way oversized; in the second photo quite reasonable allowing for human size difference and bulkier clothing. Third photo, hmmmm, not so sure although I think it could be again down to bulky clothing and bigger humans….?

Well, there goes the thought right down the drain that I always hear that going "by scale" instead of going "by MM" will stop scale creep between different manufacturers.

Russ Dunaway

Hey guys,

Thanks for the responses.

Yeah, the thing about the photos is, the size issue looks way worse in real life. When you have the two crew sitting on the tank and the Verlinden soldiers are standing next to the tank, the tank crew figures look like little kids and the Veinden figures look like 8 foot tall Amazons.

The only other avenue of thought is that maybe the Tamiya 1:48 crew is UNDERSIZED and the Verlinden figures are actually correct?

I'm going through a bunch of historical photos to see the relative size of the crew to a Tiger tank. The bizarre thing I'm encountering is that I swear to god it seems like in some photos the Tiger is bigger than in others.

In diorama photos it's even worse. I swear in some pictures the people are bigger!

As far as I know the basic production dimensions of the Tiger I never changed right? It was about 9 feet tall, 20 feet long, and 11 feet wide. So an average human-sized person when standing next to the Tiger tank should have about another 3 feet or so of tank height above them.

Here's why I'm baffled.

In this first historical photo all looks normal based on the Tiger's dimensions:

But then looking at some modeler's photos things get wonky.

Maybe it's my eyes being deceived, but in THIS next photo the crew looks too small:

And then look at this picture of a Forces of Valor collectible Tiger I. The crew looks HUGE in this photo!:

I mean is it an optical illusion?

How tall are the standing figures?

A 6ft tall person (1.8m) will be 37.5mm tall at 1/48th scale.

@King Monkey,

I will have to measure them and report back in a short while…thanks for the measurement guide!

Here's another photo that messes with my head. This guy to me looks way too big for a Tiger I!:

Could it be that the people in the historical photos are shorter and slighter of build than perhaps the modern day average height and build that model firms are basing their dimensions on?

People in old photos often appear almost unrealistically slight of build, you get a sort of real life pumpkin head effect where people seem far too thin.

We had a WW1 themed exhibition at work, for which we obtained a period Service Dress uniform for one of us to wear. The only person who it would fit was about 5'8" and 10 stone. For reference I am nearly half a foot taller and about 7 stone heavier.

If one or the other of your figures has scalable weapons or equipment that is clearly over or undersized then this is an issue but otherwise could reasonably put down to natural variation based on the above points.

@newarch,

Thank for the insights, very interesting!

K folks, so here's my deal. This is my Tiger I along with all of the figures. The two figures on the far right are the Verlinden ones. In these shots everything looks fairly good as far as scale.

The Tiger I was about 10 feet tall so the height of the guys is about right. Their bulkiness is good.

I think the main problem is that the Verlinden guys' heads are slightly bigger, and that combined with the bulkier winter coats AND being slightly taller it all makes them look slightly out of scale.

Particularly with the contrast of the crew member wearing white with his legs bent and drawn in. He almost looks like a kid next to those Verlinden guys.

So I'm not sure if I'm going to use all of these together in the same diorama. I might leave the Verlinden guys out of this one and use them for something else.

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So what you do you guys think about the Verlinden figures? Are they too borderline out of scale to be use with the Tamiya figures?

To me, looking at the Bundesarchiv image and the height of the turret in relation to the crewmen's legs makes the FoV look spot on.
Again looking at the Bundesarchiv image, the two soldiers wrapped in greatcoat and head gear walking past look bigger than the crewman standing there watching the two on the tank.
Just to confuse things further for you :)

Russ Dunaway- just because a company like Verlinfin does a crappy job implementing a scale, is no reason to toss out the idea of scale. 1/48 has had hundreds of manufacturers producing thousands of plastic model kits for decades.

The vast majority of them are consistent to a degree that a hobby like ours, ruled by size instead of scale, can only dream about.

Curiously you get a very similar effect with the MP40 SMG. In some photos the weapon is huge compared to the guy aiming it and he seems to be holding the gun so that his hands are a meter apart. In others it appears much smaller and reasonable. All due to human variation I guess.

Lucias, The point is still -- saying something is a certain scale or a certain mm did not change anything or there would not be this post.
"Size or scale" -- call it what you please.

It looks like the Verlinden figures are 1/35, while the Tamiya are 1/48. AFAIR, the only 1/48 miniatures Verlinden released are flight crew, intended to be used with airplanes.

@Beowulf,

No actually Verlinden did a number of 1:48 resin sets for WWII, which is why this scale issue is so baffling to me.

Here's the original packaging:

So if these are indeed 1:35 then Verlinden mislabeled them!

Heya folks,

So I think I addressed the issue with these Verlinden figures. It's not their bulk, it was their height.

If you look at this photo of the Verlinden packaging, you'll notice how tall the boots are before they disappear under the long winter coats.

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These boot pieces come as separate components.

And since they are resin they are easily modified and converted.

So to bring them into line with the height of the Tamiya figures, I removed the boots and trimmed them down so that only the very bottoms are sticking out of the bottoms of the coats. I think overall I reduced their height by about the equivalent of a head or so.

This was what I ended up with. Now that they are all closer to the same height they feel like they all belong together more:

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When put up against the side of the tank, the standing figures are all about the equivalent of men that are about 5'10" in relation to the height of the Tiger I which was just under 10' tall.