"Time to return to 1/6000 naval gaming???" Topic

I gave up on 1/6k because they were too small to see. I am OK with 1/3000 for pre-dreadnoughts and 1/1200 for Ironclads but am dissatisfied with the sculpts of 1/4800 and 1/3000 WWII and modern ships. I still can hardly see them and a lot don't look much like their real life counterparts. 1/2400 sculpts are a mixed bag, expensive, and the needed ground scale compression sort of puts me off. I have a huge WWII/modern 1/1200 collection but any reasonable ground scale is out of the question and they are really collectibles not gaming models.

OK. Maybe I cant see them but with a label on the base 1/6K are as good as the 1/3K and 1/4800. The sculpts are better than many of their larger counterparts and ground scale is definitely better.

What are your thoughts on the subject of scale and sculpting for WWII and modern naval games?

I always thought it would be cool to play on the floor at a 1 foot equals 1 nautical mile (1:6076 scale) with the 1/6000 ships.

As modern ships are significantly bigger, for the small ones than WW2 and you don't lose those sweet camouflages (and consequently have to buy Mel W book!) 1/6000 is right spot on.

For ww2 /ww1 the DD are a wee bit small but if you don't have space, it is compensated by a reasonable look of the table where divisions look ok instead of a wagon train.
personally I would transfer to 1/4800 if possible though I have in 1/6000 almost everything I'd ever need… all too often in despair of players though.

With a lot of dough and then a lot of space I'd go for the Rolls Royce 1/2400…

With 1/6000 GQ I use 1cm= 200y, looks right and gives space.

I'm a bit torn too.

1/6000th vessels are really, really small, especially for vessels under capital ship class size.

The ground-scale (sea-scale?) issue is much better though, especially if you don't have a basketball sized floor to play on.

1/4800th is better, but limited more to WWII, and again, escort vessels are very small.

Generally, I prefer 1/2400th miniatures, and have learned to live with the scale compression. Playing on very large tables at a library, or convention, helps, and the floor is even better, if your knees can stand that, and people don't step on the miniatures.

I love the 1/6000 for WWII and wouldn't trade them for the world.

They look right on an 8x4 foot table while their larger cousins look like age of sail ships of the line ranged bow to stern.

Same applies for the North Sea in WWI although I do have some 1/2400's for the Adriatic where lighter units were usually in play in relatively small numbers.

The detail on the Figurehead ships is tremendous although I have not bought any since Hallmark sold off the line.

Bob

The other advantage of 1/6000; sturdy and takes no space to carry. ok now I use 1/1200 planes and 100s of them are another story.
Secondly 1/3000 and 1/2400 cannot be painted less than well. if not… they look awful. So unless you paint like the guy who put another thread this day, better stick to 1/6000 or 1/4800.

Mako11 1/6000-1/4800++ if not the same period no fuss about changing scale.
I thought about southpac in 1/2400th as they always fight close by night.

As I've said before, 1/6000 requires some mental adjustment in order to avoid the "too small to see" feeling.

Standing next to my 7 x 8 foot game table, I don't expect to see detail, but instead a panorama of the entire battle. To improve the look of this "panorama", I remove bases and use chalk wakes. The 1/2400 equivalent view would require a Gymnasium floor, and would typically be a tan color "ocean", cluttered with players and gaming paraphernalia.

If I want to see detail (and refresh my memory as to what they look like individually), I lean close to within a foot or 2 of the model.

MH

I prefer my 1/6000 and a small plastic strip down the side painted to match the sea base with flag and name tag certainly helps.

1/4800 is probably ideal but the ranges are just too limited.

Good 1/4800 have a lot now via shapeways+ CinC. ww2

Yea, for escort battles, with the occasional larger ship, 1/2400th is the way to go.

I originally started with 1/6000 because they were cheap, quick to paint up, and I had young eyes. Like Mark (hindsTMP) I also appreciate large sweeping battles with enough room to maneuver in and out of contact, and very large 1/6000 scale battles fit nicely on reasonably sized tables (4'x8' up to 6'x8').

I love the 1/2400 scale miniatures and over the years have collected quite a few. Several years ago, I started gaming with them, and now I find that most of my 20th C. naval gaming is in this scale. With a ground scale of 500yd/inch, there is quite a bit of scale distortion, but a line of 4" battleships steaming about 1" apart actually has the aiming points (fore funnel or bridge) at a roughly believable separation (2000ish yds), and as most action takes place at ranges of 1-3 feet, even largish BB duels fit on a reasonable table. I might consider halving the ground scale (250yd/inch) for night actions or cruiser/destroyer actions.

I originally meant to do large fleet actions in 1/6000 and smaller, more "skirmishy" actions in 1/2400, but I have been slowly collecting toward the goal of doing the Pacific War carrier battles in 1/2400, and then this year I started the crazy stupid project of expanding my WWI fleets up to the full Jutland OOB. I have also started investing heavily in 1/2400 shore terrain. I suppose that means I've made some kind of commitment.

- Ix

Going in the other direction – a friend of mine occasionally runs 1/1200 scale games of Action Stations set in the English Channel, and I've really enjoyed those. I even contributed my 1/1200 model of Prinz Eugen to his collection so that I'd get to see it in action. The Prinz Eugen steaming into the midst of an MTB action starts to feel very similar to a game of Ogre….

- Ix

Speaking of shore terrain, I'm still looking for a way to make nice-looking cities in 1/6000. Has anyone tackled this problem?

I have made rural features like fields, beaches, cliffs, forests, farms, etc., just not dense urban buildings.

- Ix

Hard to see the rivets and welds at 1/6000. For my predreads I like to lop off a zero (1/600) or 1/700. For WWII I prefer 1/1200, but also like 1/2400. However, most recently I am tinkering with 1/700. I have the luxury of a big patio and huge driveway though. I don't think I could ever bring myself to go down to 1/3000 for anything, much less 1/4800 or 1/6000. I'd rather suspend the visual effects of distance.

From my personal point of view, 1:2400 only works on the tabletop up through the RJW period. As much as I would like to play 1:2400 scale for WW1 on the table-top, the conflict between model scale and ground scale is insoluble for me. If you are playing a 2 inch = 1000 yards ground scale, even if your battleships are nose-to-tail, the minimum interval from bridge to bridge for adjacent ships is going to be +/- 3 inches, or 1500 yards, whereas real world intervals would be in the region of 800-1000 yards.

Consequently, my WW1 BC forces are 1:6000 scale. This scale permits ground scales of 3 or 4 inches per 1000 yards (depending upon scenario and table size) and enables reasonable intervals between ships without those aesthetically off-putting nose-to-tail formations.

Strictly my opinion, of course, what with beauty being in the eye of the beholder.

B

I like to look at a miniature without putting my nose up against it and say that is HMS Rodney or a Sommers class DD. Can not do that in scales smaller than 1/3k due to size. I can see the 1/3k sculpts but they really don't look like the ships they portray in many cases which I find detracts from the experience. Don't know. Perhaps I should stick with boardgames for WWII and modern naval.

I have a fleet of WWII Solomon Islands ships. I like them very much. Painting is very much the key to showing detail. As for rivets showing. The GHQ ships are extraordinary to look at. However, last I looked, the rivets are the size of manhole covers. Real life rivets are infinitesimally small at 1:2400 scale. But we expect to see them, so they look good on scale ships.

I am planning a number of small predreadnought/WWI scenarios. Being budget minded, I purchased some balsa and plan making some 1:2400's. Probably won't be that much to look at, but they will be mine. Time will tell.

PFC (formerly CinC) don't have the oversized rivets, and are crisply sculpted and cast as well, so are worth a look.

They're a little less expensive than the GHQ vessels too.

For the larger WW2 ships, 1/6000 is certainly the way to go. 1/3000 is even a bit big for ww1, but fine for pre dreads.

Partly depends on rules of course, I prefer to use DDs as groups rather than individual ships.

For Fletcher Pratt floor/lawn games we use 1/2400.

Being budget minded, I purchased some balsa and plan making some 1:2400's. Probably won't be that much to look at, but they will be mine. Time will tell.

Don't know if you saw this – hope it helps!

link

Thank you, Virtualscratchbuilder the section on creating the shear in the bow alone is priceless.

At less than 2400 you might as well print out color top-down pictures and glue them to bits of blue wood. There's not much point in lead that small, especially since I've gone near-sighted.

Thanks for the link Virtualscratchbuilder. Back in the late 50's a friend and I got into 1/1200. We collected Authenticast and battled on his basement floor. Both tried modeling vessels. I still have some of his but mine were abysmal. I suppose I could try again but I don't think the results would be any better. I have seen some of your other stuff. You will do OK.

Murvihill. Nothing beats a good miniature. I do lots of boardgames and like them but a nice miniature steals the show.

I have decided to do 1/6000 ships for my WW2 fleets. I am worried about the ease of 1dentifying 1/6000 ships on a table. How are they labeled so you can identify different ships of the same class?
Danny Weitz
La Quinta California

I have decided to do 1/6000 ships for my WW2 fleets. I am worried about the ease of 1dentifying 1/6000 ships on a table. How are they labeled so you can identify different ships of the same class?

Most use stands with labels.

Since I don't use stands, I either paint each ship slightly differently, and/or print the name on the bottom of the model with a pencil. In the image below the 3 "Lion" class BCs have a lifeboat painted differently, left-to-right, in the order in which they are normally listed in reference books (Lion, Princess Royal, Queen Mary). So if the light-colored lifeboat is in the second position, it's the Princess Royal.

During games, I have found so far that I can usually remember which ship is which by its position. If I forget, I look at the paint scheme, or pick it up and look at the bottom.

MH