Maarten Schönfeld wrote:
Noop,
it's not a ship's success that makes it famous, it's the drama.
So PoW is much more dramatic than DoY, apparently. If Scharnhorst had seen chance to sink DoY instead, the story would surely have been different.
Similarly: Titanic is much, much more dramatic than Normandie, or QM, or United States. That's why we have tons of Titanic kits, and not a single one of Normandie (for example), and very minimalistic ones of the other two.
Right on spot: Yamato is more famous then Musashi because of the suicide mission were it was sunk.
RN Roma is the only 1/350 of that class, albeit having done close to nothing along the war, butbeing sunk in an unusual and drammatic way. Career wise, Vittorio Veneto would have been the logic choice, but emotionally Roma comes to the mind.
Arizona did nothing in the war compared with many other USBB but her sinking is likend to war with Japan, and the same is true for Bismark, which outsells Tirpitz 10:1, Repulse was done, instead of Renown, the Graf Spee instead of Lutzow; Kirishima is outselling any other IJN ship other then Yamatos.
KGV was chosen over the DOY because of relation with the Bismark hunt (and so did Prinz Eugen), but for a ship to became tasty choice for the plastic kit industry, it has to have rise emotions.
If I should guess among my Poll choices, (Cavour - Viribus Unitis) the only viable targets would be Giulio Cesare and Szent Istvàn: the first for the long distance shelling at Punta Stilo and as Novorossijsk, her tragic sinking at Sevastopol (meaning it could rises Russian interest), and the other one for being sunk by MAS attack on June 1918. Neither of the two gave their names to the class, or had particularly successful service among their sisters: Doria and Duilio were much better ships, fighting on both sides of the conflict being highly prized for their excellent AA escorting convoys to and from Africa and becoming Marina Militare flagships after 1948, but I wouldn't expect then to be produced because nothing "dramatic" ever happened to them.