"A&A War at Sea scale question" Topic

Howdy y'all! What is the approximate scale for the ships in this game? I'd like to say 1/1800th to 1/2000th but cant be sure. This doesn't stop me from using my GHQ and CinC Micronaughts with it. Those ar 1/2400th. Thanks and Salut y'all!

Bruce the Texas Grognard

Yep, 1/1800.

Any metal manufacturer thinking about producing ships in 1/1800? I find the scale is a bit easier on the eyes and it would be nice to fill in the War at Sea range.

I think Avalon Hill/A&A War at Sea have the 1/1800 scale all to themselves at this point. And I doubt anyone else would want to tackle them.

Even considering the collectible nature of the ships, they are plastic and pre-painted, and all but the big ships sell for pretty cheap on ebay.

This seems like a great opportunity for a (smaller?) company to fill out the line of available ships.

I like the scale, it works well for the game it's designed for. But as most WWII naval games work at a tactical level, most wargamers prefer smaller minis to better fit scale/range distortion (even going so far as to use *shudder* 1/6000).

No matter what scale you use, you have scale/range distortions. What, a 14" WWII US naval gun can shoot out to 43,000 yards. That is 129,000 feet. At 1'=6000' that is 21.5 Feet! Pretty darn big table to be accurate.

link

EJ hit the nail on the head for me. I remeber back in my youth playing a naval war game on a gym floor. My flotilla of destroyers were a good 20 feet away from the enemy ships before I started to close.

I found the whole affair to be off-putting. My little ships were just tokens on the floor. I couldn't even see more than specks where his battleships were. I had to literally walk over and stand above them to see any sort of detail.

We played for hours, my zig-zagging to get close enough for torpedo range, his dealing with our battleships, then eventually having to worry about my little flotilla.

That was the first and last game I ever played with ships using any sort of realistic scale ranges. I now play only on a reasonable tabletop surface, and live with the distortions that every single game will require if the ships are supposed to be "to scale".

I want the ships large enough to make out some differences between them, and deal with the fact they are moving and shooting at a different scale.

The ships are said to be 1/1250 scale according to the game's rule book. There is some slight variation on that with the larger ships (e.g. the carriers).