Whenever a paper tank get out, there’ll be some complains against it, personally I don’t see the problem since what if allow full freedom for the modeller when it come to scheme and weathering and one can use them to practice (doing that with my luft’ 46). What if also don’t prevent modeller from oding the othere more real stuff if they prefer to do that, modellers aren’t obligated to get them if they’re not in that too. What ifs also allow for some fun stuff like german things captured by the ally or weird color schemes.
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I’m fine with paper panzers though they only get to my stash if they’re in my modeling genres and scales. But I would prefer to see all the major real vehicles get modeled first (looking at you, M88A2 Hercules) in 1/35 styrene. Every paper panzer - or ten zillionth Tiger 1 built in Factory X on February 20th 1943 - means another model I’m not going to see in my lifetime.
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Manufacturers will market what they believe will sell.
Our opinions don’t matter all that much. The modeling community around the world is a very diverse group.
Different subjects are popular on different markets.
“A paper panzer!!! What a waste of time! I want a 1/72 scale model of the aircraft carried by the Swedish aircraft cruiser HMS Gotland! A 1/200 model of Gotland would be cool too …”
Tank modelers are a subgroup of all model builders. Some of us have specific interests (maybe US artillery pieces or WW I armour or railroad artillery or odd prototypes).
If someone likes or dislikes paper panzers I totally support their personal decision.
Though the YAP (Yet Another Panzer) trend means that some other model may or may not be produced. The companies producing kits are not run as charities, if they think paper panzers will bring in the cash then we will be getting paper panzers. Maybe they will use that cash to produce something that I want.
If a modeler focused on all the subjects that actually existed as prototypes of steel (not sketches or wooden mockups but stuff that could be driven around)
there would still be enough to keep most of us busy for many years.
Whatever model someone decides to produce there will always be someone with an opinion about it. Everyone is entitled to an opinion (as many as they want) and everyone else is allowed to ignore that (or those) opinion(s) if they want to.
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No reason to care in the least if another likes or dislikes the model project one is building. If the model builder is happy with the project on the work bench that’s all that matters.
Ideally, one day I’d like to build a WW2 paper panzer ship, 1/350 KM O-Class Battlecruiser Barbarossa
Definitely an off the beaten path hypothetical.
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To each his own
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Do not all creative endeavours begin with a “what if” of some kind or another?
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No; all advancements in military equipment started in the premise of “What if?”.
What if we put a bigger gun on a Sherman?
What if we build an aircraft with a pressurized cabin?
What if we put an armored belt on the lower hull of a ship?
What if we use ceramics on tank armor?
So forth and so on…
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People will complain, no matter what. If it is not what-if-wining, then it is another-tiger-or-panther-moaning.
Personally I think that what-ifs actually give room for real creativity without limitations due to rivetcounting.
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I think there’s an implication here that What-Ifs are considered bad; I don’t believe that is the case at all. It’s just another aspect of the hobby; there is no room for, or indeed, any need for, division(!)
As Anthony has said “To each his own” and that sums it up.
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one still has the choice not to buy the model, personnaly I’d get the takom what if’s for fun (and I do have a few huma and revell in my stash too, I’m trianing to do 3 tones luftwaffe scheme using a dragon arado 234 B2). I personnaly do both real and what if’s now.
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Good for you, model what you like.
Haters going hate.
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Paper panzers/planes/ships are the modelling equivalent of Sliding Doors, or best-sellers like Robert Harris’ “Fatherland”. History is generally taught as a sequence of events e.g. WW2 – this happened, then that happened, Axis powers were defeated, hello 1946. I think it gives more meaning to add “…and because all that happened (thanks to those that fell, were wounded & survived) we avoided having to deal with…” …paper panzers (implying even a Nazi Europe/Western Russia and eventual nuclear exchange with the USA), the invasion of Japanese home islands, etc. etc. etc.
So why not model those drawing-board weapons? They carry at least as much meaning as the real ones.
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I don’t build “whatif” things, there are enough “real” subjects around.
However, if making a whatifs makes you happy, please go ahead, why not??? its a hobby and when it brings you joy, nothing else matters.
Besides, I’ve seen a bunch of “whatif” science fiction spaceships that were faboulous. I would not make that myself, but I admire the creativity, skill and good looking outcome.
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^^Ditto^^
Not for me, but build what you like.
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I had thought about this recently. Some or many What If’s? are, in my opinion, legitimate representations of something projected, but for whatever reason, canceled or incomplete, etc.
So, Panther II, Panther F, why not?
But that stacked turret VK.100 thing, this? I don’t know… Things like that, I have no interest.
But to each his own.
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Like you say, freedom! If you like to build a scale model of Pink Panther, the toon character - by all means do that!
There are some cases, though, when What-Ifs bother me a little - when the idea behind them is not so good, for no better description… And sometimes I think: “a little research could give you a much better idea of what to build and it would be much more real that what you have”. From my experience when you start good research you come up with things that beat fiction hands down. Like this thing:
I have a historic proof that the Duster at Khe Sanh had a skull of a dead Vietnamese wired to the armor plate. No need to make this up.
Then again, there are things than only a model can show you:
Here you have the same chopper two times - once before the rebuild and once after the rebuild.
Thanks for looking and have a nice day
Paweł
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What if I could incinerate a human being with a hand held flame throwing device? 
I’ll take the Man in the High Castle.
Isn’t that what your concept M6A3 M -SHORAD was in an exercise paint scheme was? If the Army even adopts it, it will surely be an A4.
The research is the rewarding part. I’ve learned a lot from it.
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To further muddy the waters, IMHO there are what-ifs and what-ifs 
A good deal of what-if models you see, are really, “What if I would stick together these semi-random parts I have?” but there are also what-ifs that are, “What if they had fully developed this prototype into a production vehicle?” or “What if they had stuck with this vehicle type instead of replacing it?” Call it soft and hard what-if.
Speaking for myself, I like hard what-if models, but not so much soft ones. To me, there has to be a plausible possibility for the vehicle to have existed as the model shows it. Sticking a modified turret from one tank onto the hull of another and grafting on a suspension from a third, simply makes no sense to me and I therefore wouldn’t build it except as a science-fiction model. OTOH, I do build things like these:
What if the M4A3 had been fitted with the T26 turret and used in the invasion of Japan in 1946?
What if the US Army had adopted the MBT 70, upgraded it in a few steps, and used it in the 1991 Gulf War?
What if the Versuchsträger 1-2 was meant as a prototype rather than to test an idea, and Belgium adopted it to replace its JPKs?
Trust me when I say that the first two of these required about as much research as a model of a real vehicle in order to make them plausible (not to mention for the second one: to correct all the stuff Dragon missed with their KPz 70 kit), while the third didn’t need research so much as a lot of thinking about how to realistically turn a test rig into a vehicle suitable for military use. IMnsHO this makes them “done right” rather than sloppily like you see too often for “hard” what-if models, because the builders didn’t do much or any research.
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I like this categorization very much, and whilst my own current What-If project isn’t much more than a paint job (M103 in Bundeswehr service) that is very much where I’m coming from.
By the way, that MBT-70 is a beast; MBT being one of my favourites. Below in the MASSTER scheme which I suppose too is very much a What-If(!)
(I’m aware I shown this far too many times, but it sort of ties in with Jakko’s philosophy I think)
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I like @Jakko 's point a lot, I believe he expressed much more clearly what I was trying to say.
Do I understand it right, that “soft what-ifs” are those backed up by research or throughly thought over and “hard what-ifs” are funky slap-togethers with an excuse?
Nice photos, by the way, thanks for sharing! Have a nice day
Paweł
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