Does DML operate that differently from the other companies that still make 1:6 military figures?
In a nutshell, yes! One of the principal reasons that the other companies charge so much for their figures is that they make very much smaller production runs of each figure, lower production runs means very much higher unit costs! DML have never done that and they do have strict protocols for how they manage things. For instance, DML figured out a long time ago that they needed to implement a three-figure policy (this mostly applies to plastic injection molding of items) that is to say that they need to make at least three similar figures to just break even on the tooling costs for the molded parts. This works very well in the 1/35 model range but after a while it became a bug bear for the 1/6th scale people who felt that they were getting all the same kit with every figure. Remember the complaints, "one new items doesn't justify releasing the same figure", maybe not from a hobbyist point of view but from a business point of view it makes perfect sense. It's the only way to move forward. A company has to progress in increments otherwise it'll blow the wad in one giant leap and then fail as it waits to reap back those investments (look at what happened to 21st Century when it jumped into vehicles, too many too soon and the hobbyist left them on Wal-Mart's shelf and waited for the blow-out prices). My biggest bug bear with DML was the British Ammo boots I always thought they ought to change that mold and, I reasoned, that they surely must have had their money's worth from it by now. However, from a business perspective I can see that DML would want to off-set the lower cost a mold that had already paid for itself against the much higher cost of a new mold for say a new weapon and bayonet combination (even if they didn't quite get the SMLE as accurate as we would have liked). These other companies that people keep mentioning don't have the same issues to work through as DML, they are making things in wood, faux leather and pot cast metal. Whilst many people think these things are more realistic you should realise that the only reason they do use these materials is because they have no experience in plastics and they were forced to use these materials. The fact that they seem to have won the PR battle with these items has always been a mystery to me given that so many of these items are rather shoddy and simply do not carry the crisp detail that plastic is capable of. Yes, they're getting better as their experience grows but given their manufacturing procedures they are never going to be able to ramp up their production numbers, without quality suffering further, which means they'll never be able to lower prices. So we're stuck with very high prices for the foreseeable future, especially if DML don't get back in the game.
DML are, first and foremost, a plastic kits company; it is where their expertise lies and it's where they are most comfortable. They have tried to move in other directions but their heart will always be in plastic kits. They also want to make affordable figures that folks will want to buy multiples off but, as I indicated earlier, in order to do that they have to move by increments not leaps and bounds. The hobbyists don't understand the business side of things and have pasted them to the wall for every release, and every little mistake, whilst at the same time giving companies like DiD and Caltek a pass. Caltek's 1940's era French Poilu was a pile of junk, the only thing of use on that was the MAS 36 rifle, everything else went in the bin, including the stupid headsculpt and the crappy body! DiD's WWI Tommy came with a great SD uniform but in the wrong colour; the boots ranged from mmhhh to so-so; the puttees went to the bin; the bayonet didn't fit on the SMLE and was missing a fuller groove; the SMLE had big honking cross-head screws holding it together and the detail wasn't all that crisp; and the helmet was crap. And I'm not even going to mention the horrible gross-grain they used on the webbing or the functional wire cutters that fell apart as soon as they were opened. The Caltek RAF pilot came with great gear but the RAF service dress was horrible, badly made, not accurate and leeched dye. The hat was crap and the Irving jacket was too short and didn't come with the trousers! And yet all these figures were lavished with praise. But, if DML had released any one of those figures in that state, or any figure with that many faults, they'd have been pilloried for it, (their Peter Markham RAF pilot was lambasted for the simple fact that the RAF battledress was the wrong colour). DML don't make perfect figures but they don't make figures with that many errors either! I tend to view DML as the turtle to the DiD/DAM/SS hare. They may be slow and boring but I do get good solid releases when they get it right and they do get it right more often than they get it wrong, not that you'd notice from the brickbats they receive from the hobbyists. The other thing that made DML so unpopular was the sense that they were a large company, out of touch with their fan base and only interested in turning a profit. In truth DML did themselves no favours by badly managing the PR over this and many of their on-line 'placemen' actually made the situation worse, talk about shooting yourself in the foot! But with DML out of the market for the foreseeable future the perception will be that DiD and HT are the dominant players, let's see how they fare, in terms of PR and complaints, now that the hobbyists no longer have their favourite whipping boy to hand.
So, in summary, there are logistics that you have to work through as a company if you want to keep a particular line profitable, especially in the economic downturn that we've just been through! And whilst the economies of the US, Britain and Germany are picking up and actually growing this is not true for the rest of the world, and especially not true for the rest of Europe (which is the biggest market after the US and is essentially buggered at the moment...in fact there's a real question mark hanging over the future of the European Union right now, all eyes on France!). So, yes I do believe DML when they say that they can't quite make a profit in these times. Remember, whilst they are still, essentially, a smaller, family-run business they are quite larger than DiD, DAM and SS and that means they have considerable overheads to meet before the can declare a profit. What constitutes a profit to a small group of guys working out of a large shed in Shengen is not the same as the profit required to sustain a company working out of an office block in Hong Kong! When I was younger and involved in setting up a business the best advice I ever had was to 'watch out for creeping-death overheads', it's still something I adhere to today! It's horses for courses guys and at the moment the markets do favour the group of enthusiasts with the lowest overheads. But that said, even DiD seem to have slowed their release schedule!
