"Roco Minitanks - still a thing?" Topic

I was having a browse of 'Operation Warboard' the other day by way of a nostalgia read. The aughors are very into thdir Roco 1/87 Minitanks. When I bought this book back in about 1980 it was the first I'd ever heard of these. I know they were bought out by Herpz but even they don't seem to make them any more. Are hhey still a thing? Does anyone game with gudm still?

They strike me as quite nice little models and small is often good, but as I recall they were always quite pricey. Presumably the appeal was that if you find model building a chore these would suit you. In Op W of course they didn't even paint them. I don't get the impression the range wad ever that wide. Do they still exist? Can you get figures to go with them?

I use a them a lot for 15mm. I find 1/100 a little small when next to the figures so opt for HO autos, buildings, etc.. I have a few, disassemble, paint then reassemble. Look good and not too pricey. Search the web for ROCO, minitanks, Wiking and Herpa. There are a couple sites where they sell all kinds of 1/87 military vehicles (including some very pricey but great looking odd balls). Hope this helps I may have them bookmarked somewhere but I can never find anything so usually start with a Google search.

I have a couple and just spent today stripping paint of a copy of the Roco 2 1/2 ton truck. The range was very large and the models are rather nice but just too small to use with 1/76, 20mm, 2/72 etc. Here's a listing.

link

I have a large number of ROCO Minitanks and still buy them if I see them on sale at wargame shows, usually in the ‘Bring and Buy'/flea market.

They are of variable quality, with some of the earlier models being less accurate than others, but when I started out wargaming in the early 1960s, it was either use them or use Airfix. The ROCO tanks had solid tracks, which was a big plus in my book.

I have thousands of HO scale vehicles and used to manufacture a few of them as resin kits in the 1990s.

Roco started the Minitank line in the late 1950s but eventually grew into a primarily model train company.

Roco had a marketing agreement with Herpa to sell the Minitanks line for a few years but when that expired the line languished for a few years more. ArsenalM purchased Minitanks, they used to make high quality resin HO scale models so it was a good fit.

They are having difficulties getting them back onto the market and only a few are available right now.

Fidelis Models, hosts the Roco Minitanks Collectors Club on their website and has for years. It shows a photo of nearly every Roco Minitank ever made.

link

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
Bunker Talk blog

I still see plenty of them circulating on ebay.

Of course famously used in Charles Grant's "Battle!".

Also the Wargamer's Digest in the 80s used them extensively in their Series 78 Standard Units, and occasionally mixed them with 1/72 and 1/76 kits to plug gaps in the range.

I am committed to 1/76 for WW2 but wonder if there's enough in the range for something like Arab / Israeli?

We used to mix up Roco, Airfix and Matchbox vehicles without any great issues. I still use Roco with '15mm' figures, which these days are as big as the early Airfix figures.

You might struggle a bit to do AiW in 1/87, although some bits would work.

I have inherited a number of these with a WW2 collection I bought which are some strange conversions (and paint conversions) mostly of the Roco West German Cold War tanks.

At some point I will unload them to people who have a use for them…

My casual observation is that the Roco Cold War stuff is still fairly common and easy to find but at least some of the WWII subjects have become a lot rarer (and more valuable!).

Does anybody remember the Aurora Anzio and Rat Patrol play sets/dioramas? Both had knock-offs (or were they licenced copies?) of Roco tanks, while Anzio also had hard plastic copies of Airfix US Marines and German infantry.

I use Roco and other 1/87 models for my 5mm Vietnam collection almost exclusively

The tanks always seem small. That said, I use the some vehicles (trucks, jeeps, and even US half tracks) with my WWII 20mm figures and 1/76 tanks.

Would anyone be interested in the First and Second Editions of the original Minitank Manuals printed in 1967 and (I believe) '68?

They not only list all ROCO models and accessories available at that time, but include organizational charts, vehicle stats and illustrations.

I suspect these are quite rare and have been in my possession since bought when new.

I'd take the best offer over $10.00 USD for the pair, plus postage, if anyone cares to E-mail me at TVAG@att.net, or drop me a PM here.

I LOVED these things and had well over a hundred when they were a "pricy" 50 cents each! Unfortunately, all of them were disposed of decades ago. My loss!

TVAG

.50 pricy. I have the old S&T Book 1 that as an ad for a Minitank Sherman for .25!

I was looking at a few at a show on Sunday and what they most resembled for me was the 60s Airfix range of soft poly readymades. Which figures I suppose because they ate contemporary.

My preferred scale for WW2, backed up with some nice resin models via Fidelis to replace all the non-1/87 vehicle I had to fill in with long ago.

I freely mix(ed) ROCO vehicles with my 1/72 figures. After all, it was what the vehicle represented that mattered, even if I couldn't stuff soldiers into them. So what if the ROCO T-34 was smaller than the ESCI T-34's, it still fought (and died) just as valiantly… ;-)
(My Tank Trap exploding tanks, otoh, were used as 2-man tankettes. I was very short on tanks in the early days… ;-)

By my reckoning a 1/87 vehicle is about 2/3rds the size of a 1/76 and is in effect between 16.5 and 17.5mm, depending on whether you take 20mm to be 1/72 or 1/76, which is kinda neither one thing nor another…

@4th Cuirassier, I make 1/87 about 20mm. A 6' man would be 21mm, 20mm somewhere between 5'9" and 5'10". So around average height for UK male population.

I go with 20mm = 1/76 & 1/72, 18mm = 1/87.

I use 1/76 & 1/72 infantry with my 1/87 vehicles. I tend to play at 1 stand = 1 platoon, and am happy with this as representational art. The plastic figures are cheaper and with great variety. 20mm figures do not fit well inside 1/87 vehicles.

For vehicle crews, I use 1/87 and 15mm Peter Pig; metal figures are chunkier than scale plastic and fit well together.

Way back when, I mixed vehicle scales out of necessity, but was so happy when I could upgrade to replacements for the older larger kit. The visual difference between a 1/87 M5 tank and a Matchbox 1/76 M3 is huge. The volume difference between them is cubed because of the difference in all 3 dimensions, and the visual impact is that much greater than comparing 2D line drawings.

@ MiniMo

Agreed. People have occasionally suggested to me on here that 1/72 and 1/76 are interchangeable because they're only 4% different in size, and likewise that 1/32 = 1/35 because they're only 10% apart and you can't tell. In fact 1/72 is 18% bigger than 1/76 and 1/32 is 31% bigger than 1/35, properly calculated. 1/76 is 50% bigger than 1/87.

yep, Roco still forms the basis of my forces for skirmish and company level gaming using I Ain't Been Shot, Mum.
Yes, the early Roco tanks were closer to 1/100 especially the Panzer IV.
In the early 2000s you start to see Roco Herpa as well as Roco Komo and those are (a) better detailed and (b) closer to 1/87
other good sources of true 1/87 are Heiser resin models. Now with 3-d resin printing you can get any tank or vehicle you want.
My next acquisition will be true 1/87 infantry which measures out about 18.5mm via a 3-d printing company.

In an era when the availability of tanks in 'Airfix Scale' was extremely limited where I lived, Roco tanks, even though slightly undersized, were a welcome addition to my WW2 lineup. I don't recall them as being that much more expensive than what Airfix models were selling for, but then again a couple of years have passed.

The other comparatively cheapo choice back then was the range of ready made soft poly vehicles that Airfix made. They were sold singly but also came bundled with the various assault sets. Those included were almost always completely anachronistic. You got a Centurion, M113, Patton and a GMC40 with the Coastal Defence package for example. It was very odd because they did a Sherman, Panther, and Tiger so they could easily have provided suitable vehicles.

Whatever – nobody that I gamed with bothered with these even though they were potentially a cheaper way of fielding vehicles. They weren't accurate, but nor were they much worse than many mainstream 1/76 kits, and they offered a modelling challenge too.

There was IIRC a poly T34/85 too so maybe if I ever get into AIW I could stay in 1/76 by using these…

I have a number of the polythene Centurions for my 1946 Squadron. Added some front and rear lower hull plates, removed the toy wheels and replaced the 20pdr with a 17pdr barrel. The engine deck will be covered in stowage. They look reasonably close to the MkII- the turret is too different for a MkI. If I remember correctly, the dimensions are the same as the Airfix kit. Strictly that is 2 or 3mm too short for a MkI or II but will do for the occasional game.