Different scales

James Ward has posted some pictures of Airfix kits of bombed, shelled or otherwise damaged buildings. The Italian farmhouse looks like the kind of project you would see on Grand Designs, or similar, although they would inevitably ruin it, and by the end of the programme you would be keen to throw a few shells at it yourself.

But the thing that really intrigued me was the difference in scale. Some of the buildings are 1:72, but most are 1:76. I remember all Airfix kits being 1:72 – at least those of roughly that size. There were larger and smaller scales, which from memory were 1:144, 1:32 and 1:24, but 1:72 was the most frequent one. So why would they introduce 1:76? Surely there is not that much difference between the two. Surely it does not matter.

It turns out it matters a lot.