1:700 scale is a widely popular scale mainly used by Japanese ship model kit manufacturers, such as Aoshima, Tamiya, Hasegawa, Fujimi and Pit-Road
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There were no standard scale in ship models before the introduction of 1/700 scale. Manufacturers such as Airfix, Renwal and Heller were producing ship models in various scale, ranging from 1/400 to 1/600 scale. In 1967, Revell began to produce ship kits in a unified 1/720 scale, and Italeri followed Revell ten years after. In 1971, Japanese manufactures started to produce a series of 1/700 scale water line ship kits. This series steadily expanded over the years. At the beginning, ships of the Japanese Navy are only available in the series, but later various fleets such as those from the American, British and German navy are also included. Between 1977-1979, Matchbox also released a small number of British, German and US waterline ship kits [1], they were designed to be made of different colors of plastic so that painting was not required [2].
Due to the large range of water line kits available in this scale, it becomes popular and now widely considered as a 'standardize scale' in ship modelling. Today there are other companies outside Japan producing 1/700 scale ships as well, such as the Chinese company Trumpeter and Dragon Models. Various aftermarket photo-etched detailing parts are also widely available for adding fine details to ship models.
The Water Line Series was created by the Shizuoka Plastic Model Manufacturers Association in May 1971. It is a collaborative effort by three Japanese manufacturers to produce an ongoing collection of 1/700-scale kits of warships of the world [3]. It started with four manufacturers (Tamiya, Aoshima, Hasegawa and Fujimi), but Fujimi separated in 1992 and made their own line named Sea Way Model Series. As the series name suggests, the models are produced only with the portion visible above the water, that enable them to be displayed as though they were at sea. Today there are over 180 products in the series, with most of them being ships from various WWII navies.