"Most useless / redundant addition to your forces" Topic

In the 'favourite battle' thread I was reminiscing about my pre-Christmas habit as a kid / teenager of buying and building a kit of something related to what was on TV. Usually this was the Battle of the Bulge, which seemed to get shown every Christmas, so I ended up with odds and sods of US armour that were wholly useless to me given that my 1/76 stuff was all 1941-2 Red Army. Doing this became part of the pre-Christmas school holiday ritual. Take the dog for five-mile walks; watch terrible movies; build the kit.

In fact I accumulated quite a lot of stuff that was of no conceivable use. Not in the sense of a T35 being of no conceivable use. There was a use for those, they just were no good for it. No, what I had was stuff I couldn't use. I didn't need a GMC M40 or a Priest or a Chaffee.

I'm wondering who else accumulated stuff because you just did. As well as my pointless US stuff I also had a 20mm Calder Caft Nebelwerfer. Who the hell can use a Nebelwerfer in a 1/76 game? Either it or the target would need to be offtable unless your ground scale is a bit silly. I also had Airfix Stalin tanks. Right front, wrong era. And anyway who needs those? Even if you had a 1945 Red Army it shouldn't have any JS3s and they are terrible JS3s anyway.

I also had an Esci 1/72 King Tiger. I have no idea why.

Lately I've been acquiring 1/32 stuff. To go with my 50-year-old Airfix figures I started buying vintage Monogram 1/32 armour kits, delighted to find any. I ended up with Sturmpanzer IVs, Wirbelwinds, Ostwinds – none of it any use at all in a skirmish-scale game. I saw sense and flogged them on.

There's no way I'm the only one who did this. Come on, sound off. What's the most utterly futile bit of kit you have? Has anyone got a 1/76 Karl Moerser or anything?

I have a 1/72 Karl. And a 1/72 Leopold railway gun. And the full 1/72 German armoured train that was available some years back. All still kits mind! I have several Nebelwerfers, both towed and mounted on the armoured Maultier. Now they are useful. Probably got a dozen or so King Tigers. Again, very useful.

A friend bought me a 1/72 (I game WWII in 1/72 in case you haven't guessed) Maus, but the one in red primer with a massive weight for a turret. That is truly useless.

I too have a Maus…….great big immobile thing that has never graced a table similarly a Leopold railway gun site in its box as well.I
Just remembered my Soviet armoured train …….just have to find it!

I have a maus as well, though my version is in proper yellow with green stripes.

Easy.

Back in 1974 at the age of 7 I had to have my tonsils out. The day before my mum took me to Woolworths in Egham and invited me to "pick whatever I wanted" from the Timpo rack. Now, usually, my mum was keen NOT to feed my toy soldier habit; I was so taken aback instead of choosing something useful, like US Cavalry, I picked something I thought she would approve of: the unmilitary and totally ****ing useless Eskimos!

I hated these things. They were larger than my other figures, horrible unattractive sculpts and didn't work with anything. They never made it to hospital with me and were only ever used in extremis to back up my Indians.

On the plus side, after the op my dad bought me the Airfix 1/32 8th Army and I had a visit from Bernard Cribbins.

Well my 18c Prussian army has a complete range of bread ovens and accompanying loaves and figures…..I mean they are lovely figures but what on earth did I think I was going to do with them?

I had been working on 1/144th scale forces, primarily for Blitzkrieg Commander. On Ebay someone was selling the Dragon/CanDo set of four of the Gerat 040/041 super heavy self propelled mortars. I put in a max bid of something like $8 USD for all four and ended up winning. I have the 54cm Mortars Loki and Thor and the 60cm Mortars Odin and Ziu. If nothing else always a conversation starter.

You can use anything in a skirmish game. I have thought about getting a 1/56 Karl. Scenario will be the Germans are trying to load it onto a train and have to hold off the Soviets for x number of turns. Big guns are also valid for skirmish gaming. Soviets used 203mm Howitzers Street fighting in Berlin. Brits used 5.5" guns for shooting at Japanese bunkers from a few hundred metres away.

I have a Renault FT17 bulldozer …

… but it isn't useless and has had its baptism on the wargame table !

Phil
P.B.Eye-Candy

A pair of Jagtigers in 1/76 scale.

It seems that back in the 70s, it was always easier to find very late war behemoths than something like a Panzer IV.
So, I had a King Tiger and multiple JS3s. Besides, they seemed cool and what did I know about when, and in what numbers, they appeared in the war, when I was 15?

Actually, I still have the models! I think I might paint the JS3 as Egyptian for a second line unit in '73.
The others, who knows what to do with them?

Hasegawa 155mm "Long Tom" howitzer. I bought two of them (and built them up). Not used them in, what, 47 years. They could be used as objectives to fight over, can't think of anything else unless I put them inside something "concrete" and call them naval guns, but that's objectives again.

Jagdtiger, check, Long Tom, check. I think the Jagdtiger has been used once in about 30 years.

I have thought about getting a 1/56 Karl. Scenario will be the Germans are trying to load it onto a train and have to hold off the Soviets for x number of turns. Big guns are also valid for skirmish gaming.

I would also think that such guns could make for great big objectives for night time surprise raids and so on. Imagine a group of partisans or commandoes sneaking behind the line to the gun position that has been doing a devastating bombardment lately. Now they will need to get past the sentries and place demolition charges on a few crucial spots to stop it from firing.

However, such guns tended to have quite a large crews, and if the sentries can rise an alarm part of the strike team needs to hold back the reinforcements while the demo team completes their work.

I am p155ing myself laughing because you lot are worse than me.

:-)

Leopold railway gun…Maus with the dummy turret…Timpo Eskimos (Bernard Cribbins – why couldn't it have been Jenny Agutter?)…Prussian bread ovens, with bread…LOL.

The barrel to my M40 GMC ended up on my converted SU85 – it was too big but it looked really meaty. My Stalins donated their running gear to my scratchbuilt T35s. Compared to the cr@p above, they were actually quite useful.

Keep them coming…

@ Pan

I have bad news re your JS3s. I have a feeling the ones they used in the AI wars were a warmed over variant with an extra road wheel. So they're less useful than you thought…

Bendy plastic Airfix Pattons which were used as Pershings, in my defence a long long time ago. Eventually they ended up as range targets for my mates Air rifle, don't know what airfix bendy plastic was made of but its pretty much indestructible by air rifle.

Well, the first place in Redundant Unit goes to one of my 28mm 1st US Rifles from the War of 1812. Same manufacturer and same molds. Only one regiment ever wore that uniform, but one of mine was lost in the garage when I bought and painted the second.

Honorable mention to the GHQ Bersaglieri which I bought because my 6mm Adler Italians lacked the Bersaglieri feathers. Sadly, so do the GHQ figures. They miss first place because at least the figures aren't identical, and I might someday, maybe need more 6mm Italians than either one order.

That's of what I still have. The "Most Useless" award goes to units bought in the expectation that the manufacturer was going to sell a complete line later. These have long since marched off to the flea markets.

JS3s? Check. A whole company of 'em. Never been on a gameboard yet.

And I just finished painting a platoon of Pershings. Not bendy Airfix ersatz, but 5 pewter GHQ actual Pershings. I did a pretty good job on them, if I do say so myself. White circle-stars, extra ammo crates and tarps festooned on the engine decks, and an open hatch and chest-up of the TC for the platoon command tank (holding mic to mouth, and with goggles pulled up on his helmet above his brow).

Should probably post some pics in the 6mm thread before I put 'em in a box, from which they are unlikely to ever again emerge …

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

Mark I, I thought the whole point of "Cold War Gone Hot" games was to provide an excuse for putting that sort of hardware on the table?

In terms of unpainted lead, I'd amassed quite the collection of Ground Zero Games 18mm sci-fi miniatures that I planned to convert for a project set in a galaxy far, far away…shortly before Star Wars Legion came out.

As far as stuff I've actually assembled, I've got all sorts of obscure naval miniatures, including quite a few "paper" ships. Many probably see play at some point, but what am I supposed to do with HMS Habakkuk?

Does a Sturmmorser Tiger count?

It was 3 15mm ACW Union Mortar rafts- I mean, how likely would I be to use them? However to outdo myself I bought an 18th century string quartet and flute player in 28mm – not too likely to share the table with my Deaths Heads!

I've got original Airfix grenadier guards marching band. My father bought them for me back in the 60's. I never have figured out a use for them.

Mark I, I thought the whole point of "Cold War Gone Hot" games was to provide an excuse for putting that sort of hardware on the table?

Indeed! You are spot-on and ranged in on your target!

A great opportunity for my JS-3s to face off vs. my Pershings. And I can get my Chaffees onto the board as well. And as many Sherman Easy-8s as I can muster. And T-44s … my God man, I simply MUST get some T-44s and get them painted up just in case.

But alas, I have had so few occasions of getting even my mainstream forces on a game table these past 10 or so years, and I have SO much stuff in my "to be painted" box, and SO much stuff in my "ready forces" box that really needs to be upgraded to my more current (ie: last 20 years) painting skills, and I have SO much more stuff on my "I really GOT to have it" list to complete my "read forces" to the level I want them to be at (I mean, I still don't have any White-Laffley armored cars for my Armee d'Afrique force -- oh the shame!).

But yes, right behind that is the T-44s for my "Berlin Airlift gone sour" gaming. Yep. Just the next in line. I mean, I just managed to finish those Pershings, and they sure do look like they need a game table to roll-out upon…*

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

*Even IF the US M3 Medium (Lee) tank company I painted up 15+ years ago has still never seen a game table …

I've got a SturmTiger converted from an Airfix Tiger which I suspect might not see very much action. I like making models so I don't mind really.

I converted my Airfix JS3s into ISU-122s by putting a big box on the Hull and sticking a gun on the front.

My most useless purchases are probably a mule mounted maxim gun and a herd of goats. I did manage to work the goats into a couple of games though.

All from GHQ and thus only in 1/285th, I have 2x Karl-Gerat, 4x Maus, and a mere 2x E-100.

I've never understood why i got them, I have never used them on the tabletop, but I refuse to think that they are any worse than my 1815 Perry Cumberland Hussars :-)

I have a 20mm Cold war/early 1990s Spanish Mechanised Cavalry unit with AML60s, M60A3s, loads of M113 transports plus mortar, command and Milan variants; they also have some soft-skins and a couple of the brand spanking new (late 1980s) BMR600 apcs (on trial) with about 3 platoons of infantry :)

How's that for odd and useless :)

Ye gods, Richard, what were you thinking!?

Does waking up in hospital with Jimmy Savile holding your hand trump Bernard Cribbins?

Ps. Receptionist's anecdote

Pps. Bernard Cribbins – really dirty after-dinner speaker

Not that I don't have my own green units, but one thing you can do is set up a suitable board and rotate out troops for some quick games.

Sounds as though a German setting on a tabletop--used for 1945 and then again for early Cold War Gone Hot--would get a lot of the "useless" castings into a game. As has been pointed out, the long-range stuff can be an objective, caught in a convoy ambush or be in the middle of an evacuation--though none of us would be the first to actually build the supporting artillery and have it firing from a board in another room.

Richard, do you have any Warsaw Pact troops to play against the Spanish? Because as far as I'm concerned, the only truly useless troops are the ones you don't have an opposition army for.

Yeah we have all done it at one time or another.

On the other hand, if you look at the output of hobby manufactures, if gamers stuck to things they could actually use on the table top, in scale terms, most of these companies would go bust!

I have an HO fishing trawler and a 1/100 Ju52 that were part of a historical skirmish scenario.

4th – what would I do with Jenny Agutter at 7? I had to wait ten more years before I saw Logan's Run to work that out.

Stoppage – at least it was only a hand.

PS Cribbins is an ex-para: what do you expect?

Oh yeah, forget my JS3 with broken suspension.

My entire microarmor collection.

I have about 8 cubic feet of boxes filled with tabks and guns and infantry, quite a bit of it painted and playable, but I haven't had it on the table in over a decade. I tried for years to find rules I liked to play, but sort of just ran out of interest. I still mean to try Rommel, but the grid is actually a hindrance.

- Ix

Robert Piepenbrink

They are the only post-1970 forces I own (I have a platoon or so of Vietnam era Yanks).

I just got carried away, in fact I have some more infantry and an MG3 in support fire mode to paint up which arrived last week :)

Some photos over on my blog -
link
link

For me it would be a 1/48 scale Ju-52! It is Collection Armour one and a lovely model. In my defence I got it ridiculously cheap.

My entire microarmor collection.

Ahhh! Say it isn't so!

I have about 8 cubic feet of boxes filled with tabks and guns and infantry, quite a bit of it painted and playable, but I haven't had it on the table in over a decade. I tried for years to find rules I liked to play, but sort of just ran out of interest.

Ix –

IIRC you're in the Bay Area? A participant in the SBGC? I'm in the East (far east!) Bay, and on the SBGC mail list.

I have rules that I like quite a bit. Maybe we can / should try to put a game together.

And oh, BTW, it's been about a decade since my micro armor managed to find it's way onto a game table too. But I would never (NEVAH!) suggest they were useless. Far from it -- those boxes of painted pewter … they are my treasure chests.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

Way way back when i was much younger i used to play micro armour tournaments.
Back then, a popular maker used to have quite poor quality control.
Some tanks were so mis-shaped that it was hard to work out what they were.
You could usually pick through and choose the good ones.
I went through a phase of picking the worst.
My thinking was that it'd confuse opponents.
I think i still have these but i probably last had em on a table about 1979.
When i moved on from competitive gaming.

And oh, BTW, it's been about a decade since my micro armor managed to find it's way onto a game table too. But I would never (NEVAH!) suggest they were useless. Far from it -- those boxes of painted pewter … they are my treasure chests.

I've been ruthlessly discarding projects that will never be completed for a few years now, and I still have the microarmor. The GHQ and CinC models are delightful, and I still hope to play with them someday. It's just that WWII grand tactical is now so far down the list of projects that it's hard to see when that will happen. Working and commuting in this region take too much of my time.

- Ix

My entire microarmor collection.

Ditto that.

While something smaller that 20mm would be nice, 6mm is just too small for my old eyes.

Did just pickup a pack horse train. But they are not useless, as their job is just to clog up the Game board

I'm working on a project to build an entire squadron of desert pink B-24 bombers. That might seem too niche to be useful, but I do fully *intend* to use them…

- Ix

@ Yellow Admiral

In what scale?

I would prefer 1/300 scale for ease of gaming, but all the nice models are bigger. If I could fit 18x-21x AIM 1/200 B-24Ds in a box formation on my 3" hex mat, I'd get them.

- Ix