"1/3000 or 1/6000 WWI Ships" Topic

So – trying to get some ships to push about the table for Fleet admiral. 1/6000 will probably be better for larger battles, but 1/3000 will work ok for smaller actions. Anything larger scale (1/2400 or larger) will likely be too big.

All I can find is:

Navwar – 1/3000 out of the UK
Figurehead – 1/6000 scale

The Figurehead are twice the cost of the Navwar despite the exchange rate and 40$ shipping to the US, so I'm leaning towards Navwar.

Anyone got any other options I should consider ?

There are some in both scales on Shapeways, but the cost is fairly prohibitive.

You might consider 1:4800. A fairly good range of available models for WWII. I find them to be a bit more accurate than some on NAVWAR's. Shapeways has some in this scale also. The price of the ones on Shapeways is not too bad. Other makers are M.Y. (Mick Yarrow) Mininatures in the UK and CinC in the USA. There is a 1/4800 Yahoo group which has pictures of a lot of them.

1/6000 are really small. Buy some samples before you decide to go full speed into that scale.

You can get the Figurehead 1/6000 from Scale Creep Miniatures scalecreep.com right here in the US of A.

Skytrex in the UK carries the Davco 1/3000 link I don't know if anyone in the US sells them.

LT

War Times Journal, 'WTJ' – in the U.S. – fantastic to deal with, amazing models:

wtj.com/store

available in multiple scales, too!

I've done a lot of 1/6000 ships that are not made by Figurehead or anyone on shapeways – mostly stuff from 1880 – 1905. I'm selling resin copies of them, but they're pricy – though You get a lot of detail and accuratesse for the buck.

Get in touch if You're interested.

Hi RupertC,

Although Figurehead recently increased its prices, it looks to me from examining Last Square's, Scale Creep's (above link), and Navwar's websites that Figurehead still costs slightly less per ship. Note that the Figurehead packs contain multiple ships, typically the entire class or a convenient subset of the entire class. For example, since the WWI British "R" class consisted of 5 ships, the pack contains 5 ships. Since the WWI British Iron Duke class consisted of 4 ships, the pack contains 4 ships. Etc. Furthermore, the detail and proportion is roughly equivalent, despite the difference in scale. Figurehead is small, but the solution to that is to sit closer to the table. Even 1/1200 is small if you stand far enough back, right? :-)

Here are my standard images of a 1/6000 Figurehead game. I removed the bases from the DDs, as I don't use bases for ships. The wakes are chalk, and extend back to where the ship was on the previous turn. They thus give an accurate impression of relative speed.

You can see in the last image that I added a small, forward protruding, V-shaped piece of plastic to the bridge of the Lion class ships, as for some reason it was missing on the casting – no big deal to fix. Note that all ships are carefully "set up" by bending to correct sheer lines, filing, and finally adjusting the waterline on a sharp metal file clamped to the workbench, before painting. BTW, I do this for all scales, so it's not just Figurehead.

Mark

Here are vtwo examples of ships I am selling – first pic of two styrene-made masters for future castings, the second one are painted resin castings. They are roughly € 2.00 each plus cheap p&p.

url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/112373573@N05/13283101445/]

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Columbia, Puritan, San Francisco by reber.christian@rocketmail.com, on Flickr

url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/112373573@N05/11537955084/]

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Marine National by reber.christian@rocketmail.com, on Flickr

All the best!

Christian.

And all my wet-navy ships are 1/24000 so far.

I should probably pick up some USN DDs, as I did the math for distance and a 1/2400 DD at the table edge appears to be just under 1800 yards from the beach! (My collection is Imperial Japanese Navy, because I love me some Long Lances!)

Coming to this thread late, as I missed it when it was new.

In 1/6000 there is only one manufacturer available: Figurehead.
In 1/3000 there is Navwar, Davco (Skytrex), and War Times Journal.

If you or your friends are over 50, I recommend you forget 1/6000. Most people with presbyopia can't see 1/6000 scale ships well enough to enjoy them anymore. I love my 1/6000 fleets, but since I passed 40 I've had an ever harder time painting them, and some of my retired friends can't even tell they look like ships anymore. The only way to tell which direction most of my 1/6000 ships are steaming is to look for the wake I painted on the base.

As pointed out above, the level of detail on the Figurehead 1/6000 ships is virtually the same as most available 1/3000 ships (except the WTJ 1/3000 pre-dreadnoughts, which are simply amazing). The proportions are often better, too. However, you will notice the lack of detail much more in 1/3000. 1/3000 scale ships benefit greatly from adding details (masts, boats, davits, cranes, rust streaks, flags, rigging, anchors and anchor chains, deck details, etc.), which can be an advantage if you like that kind of modeling. Except for masts, adding details is not really feasible on 1/6000 scale models.

Navwar (1/3000) has the most complete range anywhere – they make everything, including hypothetical designs that never left the drawing board, for every nation, from the Rennaissance to the current day. They also make a vast selection of civilian ships, including sailing vessels (even Chinese junks!), which were still pretty common in the shipping lanes up through the Great War. The Davco line by Skytrex has a very good selection from WWI on up to modern. The WTJ 1/3000 line is strictly pre-dreadnought era, and mostly limited to ships which existed in the 1895-1904 period.

The various 1/3000 lines often do not mix well. Sometimes they have very different proportions or sizes. Try to buy all ships of the same class from the same manufacturer. If you are building pre-dreadnought fleets, I highly recommend buying everything possible from WTJ, and filling in what's missing from the other lines. WTJ stands head-and-shoulders above the others in proportions, detail, and casting quality.

The 1/6000 ships really have to be based. I based all of mine on 1/2" wide sheet steel (length appropriate to model) as you can see in the photos here:
armory.com/~fathom/gq
I'm still uncertain whether to base my 1/3000 scale ships, but in general I think they benefit from being based, as they are small enough to be difficult to handle (especially little DDs, TBDs and MTBs). As an added benefit, glued-on details are better protected if players have bases to grasp, instead of grabbing masts or hulls.

An unexpected side effect of 1/6000 scale is accidental fog of war. Since they're so small, it's often impossible to recognize them by silhouette at any distance. This can lead to really fun mistaken maneuvers when players mistake friends for enemies or vice versa, or make an incorrect assumption about the class of an approaching battleline. I labeled all my 1/6000 vessels with individual vessel names and this phenomenon still occurs.

You can fit much larger fleet actions on a reasonably sized table in 1/6000 scale. I have fit entire fleet actions onto 6'x8' and 6'x12' tables, sometimes without anyone encountering the dreaded Edge of the World. Alternatively, 1/6000 can do smaller actions with much less scale distortion. In most naval rules, a battleship is 1000-2000 yards long, so if you adhere to ground scale a line ahead formation looks crammed together, or if you make them look appropriately spaced they suffer shooting penalties from being spread out too far. If you play with 1/6000 minis at typical ground scales (1/9000, 4"=1000yd), there's almost no scale distortion.

It is much faster and easier to paint 1/6000 scale ships. However, painting the decks is quite painful, as the surfaces are so small.

There is no shore scenery available in 1/6000 (buildings, harbor pieces, forts and/or batteries, lighthouses, etc.). You have to scratch build everything. There is a bit available for 1/3000, but the selection isn't great. However, 1/2400 scale shore scenery can often work with 1/3000 scale ships too, and I recently decided that the Irregular 2mm terrain (villages, towns, farms, etc.) looks okay with 1/2400 and 1/3000 scale ships as well.

- Ix

A side note: Different scales can drastically alter the effectiveness of torpedoes in many naval rules sets -if the rules require that a line from the torpedo launch point intersects the target hull, a longer target hull benefits the shooter, a shorter hull benefits the target. If your torpedo rules track the actual course of the torpedoes, you'd be best sticking to the scale the rules were playtested with. Even if the author *says* the rules will "work with any scale", they may not. Pay attention to how the game measurements scale up or down with the scale of the miniatures.

- Ix

Another side note: the effective size difference between 1/3000 and 1/2400 scales is negligible when it comes to maneuver room, gaming measurements, storage, etc. They are equivalent in every set of rules I've looked at.

The primary differences between 1/3000 and 1/2400 are in detail (1/2400 manufacturers tend to do better), casting quality (again, 1/2400 scale manufacturers tend to do better), and availability of models (1/3000 covers more eras and includes more vessels within each era, including oddballs and hypothetical vessels that nobody will ever cast in 1/2400 scale).

I personally only have any 1/3000 scale models because I bought 4 complete collections of Navwar pre-dreadnoughts in that scale (Britain, Germany, Italy, Austria-Hungary). I am much happier with the detail and proportions of the WWI and WWII models I have from GHQ and CinC in 1/2400. Now that Molniya and WTJ are making very nice 1/2400 pre-dreadnoughts, I would buy those instead of 1/3000 if I were starting my pre-dreadnought collection over again. I find 1/3000 a bit small for the pre-dreadnought era, as the engagement ranges were short and the speeds were low (esp. before 1900).

- Ix

YellowAdmiral,

I am 62 years old with poor uncorrected eyesight, and yet can see the 1/6000 just fine. When standing at the far end of the table I see the upper image above (requires glasses). The center image is what I see when sitting at the table; note from the image that you can tell different ships apart at this distance. If I want to see more detail, I bend over to within about a foot, and then pull back; the memory persists. I build and paint them using a magnifier.

Perhaps your use of bases is the problem? Most based 1/6000 I've seen hides the overall shape of the ships, due to the base color being different from the table, heavy-handed rough water effects, and visually obtrusive labels/flags, etc. However, there are several gamers on these boards who have minimized their negative visual effect; all it takes is some thought. I go without, because I only play with careful modeler-types, and we each use our own models. The convention/club environment may require more precautions, I suppose.

BTW, although the Figurehead range is quite complete for WWI and WWII (including many never-were ships), there are also some supplementary models available on Shapeways in FUD. One example is the Thai and French colonial WWII ships from Arun (I forget his company name, but the Yahoo 1/6000 group has some of his posts).

Mark

You can judge for yourself whether the basing interferes with the visibility of the ships at the link I provided:
armory.com/~fathom/gq

There are some more shots here:
link

BTW, not basing WWI era 1/6000 DDs is not an option, since they come cast onto the base. I went to basing my 1/6000 ships in a big way so I could get the ship names on there, and have them magnetized for safe transport.

I noticed the 1/6000 scale popping up on Shapeways, but so far nothing I want. Hopefully one of these days someone will do the 1880 Italian battleships Lepanto and Italia in 1/6000. I want to use them as troop transports in my alternate history WWI scenarios. :-)

- Ix

I had another thought:

1/6000 is the only scale I can imagine fitting a giant convoy of tranports onto the table. I've had a few map campaign encounters where getting several dozen merchant ships onto the table was important.

- Ix

"A side note: Different scales can drastically alter the effectiveness of torpedoes in many naval rules sets -if the rules require that a line from the torpedo launch point intersects the target hull, a longer target hull benefits the shooter, a shorter hull benefits the target. If your torpedo rules track the actual course of the torpedoes, you'd be best sticking to the scale the rules were playtested with. Even if the author *says* the rules will "work with any scale", they may not. Pay attention to how the game measurements scale up or down with the scale of the miniatures."

Use a single point, such as foremost funnel as the target point, rather than the whole ship. A torpedo within a certain distance of the aiming point intersects the target. Scale becomes less of a problem.

For me, space available and price determined scale. Any decent sized battle is too big for my small table (less than 4 1/2 feet by 3). 1/6000 scale. The comment about them being equivalent to counters is amusing. That is what I was using before I acquired my "fleet". A definite improvement in my opinion. Might get some 1/2400's for some small battles I've wanted to do.

BTW, not basing WWI era 1/6000 DDs is not an option, since they come cast onto the base. I went to basing my 1/6000 ships in a big way so I could get the ship names on there, and have them magnetized for safe transport.

You can remove the bases, as I have done. Admittedly, it is time-consuming, but it can be done. I did all the DDs for a 1/6000 Jutland game using my technique (admittedly at a 1-4 ratio). I posted a verbal tutorial on how to do it here, about 2/3 of the way down the page.

TMP link

Your bases are much better than most, I admit. However, unbased is still easier to see. I transport mine in custom-made cushioned boxes, with the models on their sides to avoid bending the waterlines.

Mark

For me, space available and price determined scale. Any decent sized battle is too big for my small table (less than 4 1/2 feet by 3). 1/6000 scale. The comment about them being equivalent to counters is amusing. That is what I was using before I acquired my "fleet". A definite improvement in my opinion. Might get some 1/2400's for some small battles I've wanted to do.

LOL! That's all I wanted 1/2400 miniatures for, and now I have most of the Royal Navy, High Seas Fleet, and Imperial Russian Baltic Navies…. :-)

I started the same way. I loved 1/6000 because, besides being really cool, they were cheap and fit in small areas, both playing with them and storing them. It turned out they were also pretty fast to paint (which is not to say "easy" – the surface areas are *tiny*) and I wound up with several large fleets before I knew it, which expanded the scope of my gaming possibilities. The plenitude of maneuver room resulting from the small scale has let me run large 2- and 4-nation WWI Mediterranean mini-campaigns.

- Ix

You can remove the bases,

…he said, and then proceeded to show me exactly how I could never accomplish it myself. :-)

That's some very nice work, but beyond my pain tolerance. I tried that same thing back in 2000 when I started with 1/6000 miniatures, and quickly gave up. Instead, I went the other direction and created uniform width magnetic bases labeled with the full vessel name and painted to match my sea surface. I incorporate the original Figurehead bases into the homemade base to retain the ship's wake and flat glue-down area. The end result is a bit more "board-gamey" than unbased miniatures, but considering the way I game with these, that's actually been an advantage.

I do prefer unbased models in larger scales. All of my 1/2400 models are unbased (except some WWI era TBs which came cast to their bases), and will remain so despite the complaints of some players. I prefer the look of the ships directly on the sea surface.

- Ix

Hi Yellow Admiral,

I have covered a big part of all fleets between 1880 – 1900. I'm selling all of them as resin copies, starting from € 1.00 per ship. Included In my further plans are Lepanto and maybe even Zenson (1918).

3 x Ruggierio di Lauria, Vettor Pisani, Duilio, Lombardia, Acordat

Bye!

Christian.

Personally I just don't get some of the odd scales used by companies, There is probably some history here but I don't understand why 1/2400 is used so much as its just too big. Surely the scale should take into account the gunnery ranges of each period and still provide a model with enough detail for a visually pleasing game. These scales make more sense to me, starting with 1/1500 for ACW 1/2000 for Ironclad , transitional and Pre-Dreadnought navies(a scale sadly nobody makes)and 1/3000 for WW1. I agree with QC that 1/700 is great for age of sail but then so is 1/1500. I am impressed by what some people have done with 1/6000 models but personally I wouldn't want to paint anything that small although the size makes a lot of sense for big fleet actions.

Model scales have never been particularly rational. Back in the day many kits were done in Fit-the-Box scale. That is what ever size/scale would fit the box the model was to be packed and sold in.

I love my 1:6000 Great War navies, and also my 3mm Modern ground troops. I have very limited space for gaming, and like to game in tables that give the feeling of gaming in the vast spaces of the real world.

1:600 is my preferred scale for Ironclads. You can really add some visible detail.

What bugs me most is that even models of the same purported scale are often vastly different in actual scale.

Personally I just don't get some of the odd scales used by companies, There is probably some history here but I don't understand why 1/2400 is used so much as its just too big.

It's too big to play Jutland on anything smaller than a gym floor, but it's an excellent scale for most other 20th C. naval actions.

- Ix