"Best scale for the western desert?" Topic

What works best for giving a good flavour of this?

It's probably 1/300 or thereabouts, but is even that small enough?

I really really like Western Desert in 1/300

That being said the local gaming group also does it in 15mm and it plays very well

I'm doing Chain of Command with 28mm Perrys and Blitzkrieg vehicles. Very happy with my setup. Putting on a 6-player game at MillenniumCon this month.

Depends upon whether you want infantry or tank-centric games, or a mix of the two.

1/144th is good, if you like combined arms.

15mm and larger is better if you prefer infantry.

1/300th for tank-centric battles.

We do 28mm skirmish in the desert and 15mm for tank battles. Works fine in both scales.

20mm is my preferred scale for the Desert

Here is my start of a Tunisia board with FJRs laid out. The ultimate board with x2 larger with the terrain and buildings better placed.

‌Tunisia 28mm by DukeWacoan, on Flickr

I agree with Thresher 1/144 for combined arms. We did parts of crusader and ended with a battle like the pictures with the 25 pdrs actually using the traverse disk the 25 pdrs had there wheels on. when fighting german tanks early war. This would be very fiddley with 6mm individual models.

Tank ranges were generally not much more than 500m to be effective so range is less of a problem on table.

In the end it depends on what you want to model. Very close range, rifle or less, then 28mm is approaching plausible.

1/72 is probably an optimum for big urban (say 10 to 20 houses)

1/144 is good for a mixed company to perhaps a battalion if just tanks. Smaller scales (6mm, 3mm) to me are more about modelling much bigger longer timescale with less emphasis on individual small group actions.

Company's often fight 2 up 1 back so a company is only really fighting with 2 platoons and the enemy with probably only one platoon. You need to decide what part of the event is of interest to you, using the above as a guide.

I have done both 1/285 / 1/300 and 15mm. I am still partial to 1/285 / 1/300.

Depends on what you want to represent, and on available table space. If you're modeling house to house fighting in Benghazi, 28mm should do well even on a small (4' square or under) board. But for brigade actions on a board that size, I've gone to 1/300. If I could count on a 6x8 table, I'd have stuck with 15mm. And while I have 2mm Western Desert armies, I can only recommend them as a travel set-up. Mind you, that partly aesthetic. No technical reason I can't just put more and small troops and tanks on the stands I use for 1/300.

I do 20mm, good for largish engagements and skirmish game too.

If you want to play huge games of manoeuvre go small 1/300th, etc

6mm all the way.
1/144th just dont feel right nor does the bigegr scales.

Yes 1/300 is generally best for most larger 20th-21st Century battles. Especially with the longer ranges of modern weapons, e.g. MBTs, MGs, etc.

My concern about using 20mm etc is that such battles are surely likely to end up as a handful of tanks among desert buildings and scenery, i.e. not a lot of difference versus 20mm anything else.

What's the canonical battle it makes most sense to try to replay / recreate? Tobruk? Knightsbridge? Lightfoot?

If I was doing it over again, 20mm.

But I started into Flames of War with the Desert, as that was the most reasonably-balanced part of the war. So I have lots of 15mm stuff and won't change.

Infantry are very, very small in 6mm.

You can actually see them in 12mm (1/144th scale).

Then, of course, there is the cost issue. 6mm wins that hands down.

It depends what the modelling goal is. What is the scale of your Desert War game. Are you modelling divisions or squads? I have started a project modelling divisions on the Eastern Front where every stand is a company. I am using 10mm figures and 3" hexes. In this case I don't need to show all the heavy weapons and so the stands are generally generic and the detail of 15mm is unnecessary. If I were to do this project in 6mm I would have several vehicles on stands to represent a company of tanks.

I think small scales like 1/300 are best suited to the open nature of many desert actions. There was very little terrain to speak of for many of them. A 9' raise could be the significant terrain feature.

Around Tobruk there were infantry skirmishes.
A couple of battles involved wadis.
These are suited to skirmish and the 20mm figures i like.

The nature of combat changed in tunisia where there were hills mountains and greenery. Is that what you mean by western desert though? I think by usual definition, the western desert only extends into libya.

I think that it depends on what you are trying to game.

I don't think I've gamed the western desert in more than 20 years. I have in the distant past, though. It's possible that the changes in gaming and rules have changed the characteristics of gaming the flat, open expanses, but I kind of doubt it.

If I wanted a table-top version of "Combat!" or "Saving Private Ryan", but set in a wadi or Sidi bou Nowhere, then I would probably go for 20mm.

If I wanted a table-top version of "Rat Patrol!", even though it would be infantry and soft-vehicle dominated, I'd go 6mm.

If I wanted to understand the history of combat in the desert, including things like why 25pdrs were provided with AT rounds and turnstyles, or why portee AT guns made any sense at all, or why the 75mm gun in the Grant was seen as a God-send by the British, or how Rommel achieved ANY of the victories he achieved, but I wanted to game at a 1-to-1 unit scale, at least for my vehicles, then I'd also go 6mm.

Because, like, how are you going to get 5km of table range in 20mm if you don't have a full basketball court floor for your game (or you don't want 15-to-1 range distortions). And if you don't have that, how can you possibly understand the dominance of a well-sited 88 or the hopelessness of the Mathilda?

Yes 1/300 is generally best for most larger 20th-21st Century battles. Especially with the longer ranges of modern weapons…

Exactly. But it is not just the range of the weapons, but the mobility and scale of maneuver as well. Even tactical maneuvering needs a table that allows you to travel at automotive speeds, not just when you charge to do a Battlefield1942 dance around your adversary, but when you position your forces and dislocate an enemy's scheme of battle.

I think small scales like 1/300 are best suited to the open nature of many desert actions. There was very little terrain to speak of for many of them. A 9' raise could be the significant terrain feature.

I prefer a game table that is 5km by 3km, or larger. That gives some room for maneuver. This kind of game area is all the more important when you put yourself in a desert setting, whether it is the western desert in 1941 or the Sinai in 1972.

With 6mm figures I can do a 1000-to-1 ground scale that is only about a 3-to-1 distortion when I have close terrain like towns and industrial complexes. Or 2000-to-1 ground scale for about 6.5-to-1 distortion if there's not a lot of close terrain to worry about (like in the desert). A ping pong table, which is generally about 9ft by 5ft, serves well enough, giving me about 6km by 3.5km at 2000-to-1.

Of course you can put your 20mm figures in that same ground scale, as long as you don't mind Pz IIs that are bigger than AT-ATs on Hoth.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

Infantry are very, very small in 6mm.

Yes, but many e.g. GHQ are very detailed …

We are doing LRDG in 1/144th and 20mm :)

With 6mm figures I can do a 1000-to-1 ground scale that is only about a 3-to-1 distortion when I have close terrain like towns and industrial complexes. Or 2000-to-1 ground scale for about 6.5-to-1 distortion if there's not a lot of close terrain to worry about (like in the desert). A ping pong table, which is generally about 9ft by 5ft, serves well enough, giving me about 6km by 3.5km at 2000-to-1.

Very true Mark, but what you say applies even more to 1/600. At that scale your 2000 to 1 ground scale is only a 3.3 to 1 distortion. Or you could go to 3000 to 1 ground scale making your 9' table 8.2Km long.
The models are surprisingly detailed too.
link
Very cheap too. 15 vehicles for $4.25 USD vs 5 for $11.95 USD from GHQ, which makes them over 8 times cheaper.

I have always used 1/300 or 1/285 for large-scale Western Desert, as well as Iraq-Iran modern and similar.

Very true Mark, but what you say applies even more to 1/600.

I thought the same, and bought some sample packs. The problem I have with those particular 1/600 is the hard metal they're made of. I am in the habit of modifying and "improving" my 1/285 stuff, and these don't allow this.

For example, the Israeli Centurion has an annoying upward bend to the main gun barrel half-way out, and trying to bend this straight broke it. Similarly, another AFV in the sample pack I bought lost its gun completely when I tried to cut out the triangular support under the barrel. Filing models to lower or otherwise change them is difficult, and wears out tools. This sort of thing works quite well with the UK 1/300, and even with the newer GHQ pewter, but not with Picoarmor.

MH

We do 1000:1 ground scale with 1/144 about 6.9:1 troop to ground tario. Its pushing it a bit, but is acceptable in more open areas. We tried 1/300 models but there were two issues for us.

Note the difference between 12mm and 15mm is actually large almost a factor of 2 in volume scaling which is what you perceive.

10mm never worked the figures were never 10mm so it failed just because it looked daft to us with over scale figures. Plus there may have been issues with turreted weapons that are not present at the bigger 1.144 scale. 10mm to 12mm volume scaling is 1.7 to 1 12 to 10mm, again significant. 12mm to 6mm is 8:1 which is why 6mm does have its proponents.

1) We wanted to model 1:1 formations so turning turrets is a critical requirement, hard/impossible to do on smaller 1/300 models like a Wiesel or Scorpion tank.

2) Unashamedly a cheat. 1/300 scale model buildings on a representative Urban area are horrendous, not 10 or 20 models but closer to 20 to 40 models. More accuracy but horrendous to fight. Thus a simplified urban area is easier to fight and though the speed of the infantry is far too fast compered to the real world it is still massively out of kilter with the mobile side so at least some of the effect in the real world is present even if "accelerated" to help overall model effectiveness.

We have started playing with 2000:1 ground scales with 1/144 but it is not good except in vast open areas. We are and always will be a 1:1 model to Vehicle scale men and similarly close to that for infantry with the admitted distortion in a large URBAN area as noted in (2) above.

For that reason 3mm is a none starter for us, decent 1:1 scaling and behavior is impossible or near so if you can't turn turrets to represent actual complex interactions.

Again the is no right or wrong its what you want to model that counts.

I thought the same, and bought some sample packs. The problem I have with those particular 1/600 is the hard metal they're made of. I am in the habit of modifying and "improving" my 1/285 stuff, and these don't allow this.

Yeah, the metal Picoarmor uses is VERY hard. Sounds like steel when you cut it, with a sharp PING! sound.

Still rather tempting, honestly, but I have an awful lot invested in 15mm terrain.

I thought the same, and bought some sample packs. The problem I have with those particular 1/600 is the hard metal they're made of. I am in the habit of modifying and "improving" my 1/285 stuff, and these don't allow this.

Thanks for the mimi review. Didn't realise the metal was so hard. I guess they are durable though! I thought you would get a nice mass effect with a pack of 15 tanks mounted on a base as a company stand. You could model the formation etc.

I got some of the 3mm Pico Armor tanks & infantry. They are nicely detailed, but from 3' away (maybe even closer than that) you just really can't easily tell what vehicles they are. It's the ultimate fog of war! Is that a truck or a Tiger I?