"Aircraft to go with 1/1800 General Quarters help" Topic

Hello all, longtime reader of TMP, first post. With the discovery of the lovely Ghukek's WW2 naval minis, and XPForge's wonderful print services which print them. I've gotten back into Naval wargaming, I've chosen 1/1800 for its commonality with the old War at Sea and victory at sea minis, some of which I have, along with 1/1800 being large enough to really dig into the modeling/painting side, which I like as much or more than gaming lol

At any rate, I want to use General Quarters 3.3 since I hear it's best, and what I've seen of it looks awesome. I'm going to order my loose leaf copy soon. So, I really like the US Carriers and plan to play a lot of aircraft heavy games, I don't fully know how GQ3 handles aircraft, basing, etc. So I was wondering what you folks would suggest for making fly aircraft/squadron minis, 1/900 aircraft like the old War at sea? or 1/1800 which is now available, albeit at a hefty price from some Shapeways sellers, or another scale altogether, and then what you recommend for the base. I heard that GQ's more granular Aircraft rules module handles altitude as well, and I was thinking basing sort of like the aircraft stands which have stackable pegs for alt changes, but I've very new to this scale and Naval wargaming in general, I only really played War at Sea back in the day, and like Star Wars Armada currently. I do also realize I've painted myself into a corner by going in on 1/1800, I do have access to a substantive (Several tables pushed together) play area, though some scale crunch may occur. Your Suggestions very much appreciated all!

Im sorry this posted three times, my browser stuck and in trying to exit, I hit form resubmission twice.

I'd go with 1/1200th, if you can afford them (they're pretty expensive if you need more than a few), but will work with the smaller vessels, since they give a forced perspective.

The Air to Air Combat game Squadrons use 1/300 scale aircraft, and use 1/1200 scale top down line drawings of ships as targets. On the game table, that visually works.
A 1/4 scale ratio.

If you're going to be using 1800 scale ships, the 1/4 ratio would suggest 1/450 scale aircraft. You could try to get Shapeways to rescale models to that, but they tend to be a bit pricey even before you start asking them to go out of their way.

There used to be a line of 1/432 scale lead aircraft models, but they've been out of production for ages. They were easily reproduced, but it's been a long time since I even saw bootlegs. You could keep an eye out on ebay, but their selection was pretty limited even in their heyday.

Maybe Ghukek does aircraft and could rescale. Failing that, I'd go 1/300.

1/600th scale can also be used with the 1/1200th ships, for more forced perspective if you like, and you'll probably find them more reasonably priced compared to the 1/1200th scale aircraft.

Looks like Warlord will be making aircraft flights to go with their 1/1800 scale Victory at Sea ships:

link

Scroll to bottom of page for photos of their aircraft flights.

Thanks guys! I'm still evaluating scales, but 1/1200 is a very strong contender for the price, availability, variety, while 1/1800 Shapeways stuff on clear thin plasticard bases is going to be my deck aircraft since they are in scale with the ships, I'm planning to have them mounted on clear plastic rather than just gluing them to the deck, that way I have my aesthetic cake and eat it too, but also use the parked deck planes as a like 'Ready Deck' or 'Busy Deck' Counter idk. Im also still looking at Basing, depending on how GQ3 handles altitude, I'd like to do stackable peg stands like the litko cones, but if not I'll likely do something DIY and much cheaper.