Zhengdefu/Kitech
Zhengdefu (or Kitech; they're the same company) are a rather oddball Chinese manufacturer. Much like "Minihobby Models", many of their kits (aircraft and military vehicles, as well
as ships) are either direct or modified copies of other manufacturer's kits, usually poorly moulded. However, they also have quite a few of their own toolings, some of very interesting subjects;
the quality of these varies from poor to excellent.
Most of Zhengdefu's kits are "box scale" the box size in this case being 33cm. They have a sizeable range of modern warships which all appear to be scaled-up copies of Skywave 1/700 scale waterline kits,
with the addition of a motorised lower hull. This range also includes the Bismarck, Yamato and Iowa-class battleships; I'm not sure whose kits these were originally based on, but they are very crude and best avoided!
These kits scale out at around 1/550 for the modern destroyers and cruisers and 1/800 for the battleships and modern carriers.
Zhengdefu's own kits include a series of Osa missile boats in 1/# and various PLAN (modern Chinese navy) warships in 1/260, plus a number of 33cm box-scale kits of various historic Chinese warships,
including a predreadnought battleship and light cruiser and an ex-WW2 Japanese frigate. Their missile boats and 1/260 PLAN ships are quite good kits with a decent level of detail and basically accurate shapes, whilst their
33cm kits are usually rather simplified and basic.
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1/230 Imperial Chinese Light Cruiser Chih Yuen |