"What scale tanks do you use for your 28mm" Topic

I have been sorting though all of my armor and have found that I am wanting to get rid of all my 1/56 scale stuff. I have 5or 6 corgis in 1/50 and like the look of them better, and don't think they match up very well. Especially the warlord M-8 and the corgi panther.

I use 1/48th and 1/50th scale vehicles.

Would that be considered old school?

Yes, I think 1/48 are even better, but they are very expensive.

1/56th

I use Corgi 1/50 too and think they look fine. I converted a standard Sherman to a Firefly and it looked okay.
Shame they never made a Panzer IV but the Solido one works well.

We use 1/56 Warlord for WW2, but all our Vietnam vehicles/choppers are Corgi.

I use 1:48 or 1:50. I have found many available at a reasonable price on shapeways.

1/48

Yep, I also have 1/50 Corgi tanks.

1/48 here. I like the models. Getting the Bandai models from the 1970s from eBay in good deals for about 10-15$ each. In fact the two T-34/76s were $17 USD combined from eBay. Assembly line with 5 year old daughter and it made a tedious task more tedious but is she proud of them. Did full interior on one just so she could learn.

I use the 1/43 assembled and painted trucks out of Russia. They are the more expensive items I have but all trucks match up as they at from this scale range.

JH

We use 1/50 Corgi/Solido and 1/48 Bandai and Tamiya models.

1/56 for several reasons. Early war selection in 1/50 is poor, but getting very good in 1/56. Also cheap 1/48-50 is getting very hard to find now. Here in the UK the Corgis that used to be £10.00 GBP a go are now £30.00 GBP+ if you can find them. Bandai kits very hard to find and very pricey. Quarter Kit are a source in 1/48, but even the kits are expensive and the made/painted ones £100.00 GBP+ each.

Always done 1/56- selection is great and growing. No other scale has as much going on now.

1/48.

1/56 due to availability.

I think 1/48 or 1/50 are better looking though.

1/48 when I can, 1/56 when I don't have a choice.

1/48 and 1/50. When I started gaming WW2 the diecast stuff was all that was available.

I started with Solido (1/48) and Corgi (1/50) and even a few 1/43 pieces because that was mostly what was available years ago but have been moving to 1/56 with the abundance of stuff that has been released in that scale.

Went 1/56 for the much greater variety available.

1/48 – 1/50 (scale so close that a lot of times when it is marked one or the other it is actually the other scale)

Check out the article on scale here:
link

1/56th for availability and they have a smaller footprint on the table.

1/56, although I have a few 1/50 of stuff that was only available in that scale.

I use 1/48 (with a few 1/50) because all of my miniatures are sculpted in the beefy style popularized by Foundry and are raised in height by 3.25mm on GW plastic bases. Over the years, I've collected the following:

American:

7x Shermans M4A1 75mm (Tamiya)
5x Shermans M4A1 76mm (Hobbyboss)
1 x Sherman M4A3 (Hobby Master, prepainted)
1x Sherman M4 105mm Howitzer (Hobby Master, prepainted)
2x Sherman Easy Eights (Hobbyboss)
2 x M10 Wolverines (Tamiya)
2x M26 Pershings (Tamiya)
2x M5 Stuarts (Ken Swenson Models)
2x M24 Chaffees (Ken Swenson Models)
2x M18 Hellcats (Ken Swenson Models)
4x M3 Halftracks (Corgi, repainted)
3x Jeeps (Corgi, repainted)

British:

3x Shermans 75mm (Tamiya M4 with Adalbertus stowage bins added)
1x Sherman Firefly IC (Tamiya)
1x Sherman Firefly VC (Tamiya M4 with VC turret from Tank Workshop)
4x Cromwell MkIV's (Tamiya)
3x Churchill MkIV's (Corgi, repainted)
2x 7-ton Humber Armoured Cars (Tamiya)
1x T17E1 Staghound Armoured Car (Bronco Models)
4x M5 Halftracks (Blitzkrieg Miniatures)
3x Universal (Bren) Carrier MkII's (Tamiya)

Russian:

7x T-34/76's 1943 turret (Hobbyboss)
5x T-34/85 (Tamiya with Gaso.Line turrets)
5x KV-1's 1942 Heavy Cast Turret (Hobbyboss)
4x IS-2 Stalins (Tamiya)
1x SU-85 (Bandai)
2x SU-122's (Tamiya)
1x SU-152 (Bronco Models)
2x BA-64 Scout Cars (Tamiya)
1x GAZ Jeep (Gaso.Line)

German:

6x PzIV Ausf H's (Tamiya)
4x Panther Ausf G's (Tamiya)
3x Tiger I's (Skybow/AFV Club, late production version)
1x King Tiger Porsche Turret (Hobby Master, prepainted)
1x King Tiger Henschel Turret (Tamiya)
5x Stug III Ausf G's (Tamiya)
2x Jagdpanzer IV L/70's (Tamiya PzIV base with Gaso.Line conversion kit)
1x Jagdpanther (Tamiya)
1x Jagdtiger (Tamiya)
1x Elefant (Tamiya)
2x Marder III Ausf H's (21st Century Toys/Classic Armor Diecast, repainted)
2x Marder III Ausf M's (21st Century Toys/Classic Armor Diecast, repainted)
2x Sdkfz 234/2 Pumas (Tamiya)
4x Sdkfz 222's (Hobby Master, repainted)
8x Sdkfz 251 Ausf C's (AFV Club)
1 x Sdkfz 250 Alte (Tamiya)
4x Kubelwagens (Corgi, repainted)
1x Schwimmwagen (Hobby Master, prepainted)

Hey 28mm Fanatik, we are on the same page!

28mm fanatic- you are a brave soul to do those HobbyBoss models. All 4 of my KV-1s became wrecks for scenery as I could not handle the fidley tracks to assemble. The models are great but tracks were too much. Replaced with Bandai already completed for dirt cheap.

My last score was a painted JagdPanther for $8.06 USD. That is me bragging.

Love, JH

@ Fanatik & Warlord…same here on the same page. For me minus the Brit stuff. I'm sporting about 100+ vehicles. There are quite a bit of mod/conversion kits in there too.

The costs for a 1:48 scale kit is much cheaper than the 1:56 stuff. With a few extra mods for gaming, these kits hold up just nice on the gaming table.

To be honest with you, when I first started out, I was on the fence on to what scale to use. I know how I get when I get knee deep in a new period..so I saw the super cheap 1:48 scale Revell Combat Crushers "Quake Sherman Tank" and the "Aftershock Panzer" for less than $10.00 USD a few years back…and never looked back.

P.

@ Bravo Two Zero,
I can relate to the waffle tracks from the Hobby Boss kits. After building about 8 of them bad boys, I realized there was a special track template on one of the spruces, which help guide the small pieces together…

P.

1/56 due to local availability

1/50th…just looks better than 1/56th.

@Bravo,

I'm lucky to have a friend who's a skilled modeler to put some of them together. He enters IPMS contests regularly.

@redmist,

I don't think 1/48 is generally speaking any cheaper than 1/56. Those cheap Revell "Combat Crusher Aftershock" kits you mentioned are neither detailed nor accurate, although they don't look half bad with a decent paint job and natural camouflage if you don't scrutinize areas like the commander's hatch or the relative scale of the hull vs. the turret too closely: TMP link

Use 1/72 a good bit because I have a bunch of them.

Redmist….100+ vehicles? … SWMBO has a squadron of Shermans and I thought that was a bit OTT, but we're clearly rank beginners!

I am guessing the Bandai kits were popular in the US. I don't think they ever caught on here. Consequently you see very few for sale here in the UK and the ones you do see are not cheap. About the same price as Tamiya kits are new, sometimes more. Buying from the US and getting them shipped over is not cheap either.

The Bandai kits were first released in the 1970's. You will still find these aftermarket kits on ebay but they're no longer widely available, hence their inflated prices. Although they're better than the even older 1/48 Aurora kits, they've been surpassed by newer offerings from manufacturers like Tamiya and Hobbyboss.

The reason some people still go after them is because they have certain models in 1/48 that no one else does, like the SU-85, Nashorn and the early war Sdkfz 251 Ausf B halftrack.

I'm swimming against the tide here… I started out with a couple of the Corgi 1/50 models. I use the smaller 28mm figures, like Perry and even mounted on bases those vehicles are too big to my eye. I took measurements in an attempt to convince myself that they weren't that far off but I just wasn't happy with such vehicles.
I'ves stuck to 1/56 since then – resins from Perry, JTFM, Warlord and some plastics from Rubicon and Warlord.
The first plastic I made was a Stug III and when I put my figures next to it and compared it to wartime pics it looked just right and I realised that many of these WW2 AFVs just aren't that big …

1/50 corgi and solido with some 1/48 models because that's what was around circa 2000 when i started 28mm ww2.

A good point eclaireur; the first time I saw a real live Sherman I was astonished at how small it was.

@28mm Fanatik – how do the plastic kits hold up to game handling? I've a fair amount of 1/56 but am not really satisfied with the detail on many of them so I bought some 1/48 kits – hobby boss and tamiya. Love 'em. But I worry they won't hold up to gamers moving them around. What is your experience?

Plastic models hold up well enough in my experience but they are more delicate than their gaming counterparts and require due care in handling on the tabletop. Diecasts hold up as well if not even better than gaming models.

The more little fiddly bits you have on the plastic model, the more likely the bits will come off in gaming situations. Ask yourself "Do I really need the reed-thin antenna or all those tiny hand rails on the tank?" If not, just keep it simple and leave them off. The Hobbyboss kits generally have more parts and are fiddlier than the Tamiya kits so must be handled more delicately. The earlier Tamiya kits actually have diecast bases and are very sturdy, but later they went back to all plastic.

Here's a non-partisan viewpoint. Use whatever you like.

link

Using TMP's own scale guidelines here TMP link, 32mm is closer to 1/50 scale:

1610/32 = 50.31 (1/50)

I used 32mm rather than 28mm since the minis I have (mostly Warlord, Artizan and Crusader) are "heroic scale" that are 32mm in height rather than true 28mm. Mounted on 3.25mm GW bases like I do they're actually over 35mm tall.

1610/35 = 46 (1/46)

So 1/48 vehicles are not oversized at all.

1 love the Corgi 1/50 and try to get every one I can lay my hands on! I'll actually design scenarios to use just what I have. Love 'em! Cheers. Lee

I prefer the 1/48 and 1/50 stuff also. I have Corgis, Blitzkrieg, 21st Century (OOP), and Battlemart. I wish more companies made complete or "minimal assembly" stuff in these scales. I do also have some Tamiya, Hobby Boss, AFV Club plastic model kits in 1/48, but it's hard for me to get motivated to build them.

28mm fantatik
Are you measuring height or to the eyes? The TMP scales guidelines are based on to-the-eyeline measurements.

Still, I think 1/48 or 1/50 looks fine because the chunkier "heroic" dimensions of metal figs along with the bases they are placed on usually conspires to make 28mm figs occuply the same height and bulk as a 32mm.

As to the quesiton at hand…
I just bought into 28mm pseudo ww2 with Konflikt 47. After ordering a starter set I went looking for all the cheap 1/48 scale kits I remember from the past and couldn't find hardly any. The oddly-pre-painted Snap-fit kits and $10 USD Academy/hobbyboss kits seem to be gone or more expensive.

With Konflikt '47 not requiring that many vehicles, the selection of 1/56 kits being so wide, and the relatively affordable prices online, I think I'll be sticking mostly with 1/56.

1/5th scale. Great selection of models getting better as time goes on. Having said that all our battles in 28mm have 1 or 2 vehicles per side, maximum. We prefer infantry battles in this scale.

Andy