"Need suggestions: 1/144 German vehicles and AA" Topic

I'm looking to add some ground targets (and dangers) to my 1/144 dogfight games. I have a small collection of 1/144 gashopon US, German and Soviet tanks and TDs (a mix of F-Toys, Takara and/or Dragon I think), but I would like to add some of the more prosaic targets like motorpool vehicles and a train, and some AA guns to shoot back. I'm starting with Germans (the universal targets) to see if this is worth doing.

For towed AA guns I would like to get various versions of the ubiquitous German 20mm Flak (single and quad, emplaced and vehicle mounted) and at least a few 37mm Flak. I already have a couple 88s, and I don't need 128s.

For the motorpool I'm mostly interested in trucks, halftracks, command cars, etc.

I have lots of N gauge track already, so I just need an N gauge WWII train to put on them. It can be a dummy engine (it will be moved by hand, if at all), but I really know almost nothing about this topic. I need 1930s-1940s European engines and rolling stock, but I wouldn't know the difference from American versions without a lot of research. Before I start a big research project for a little gaming prop, I thought I'd ask the train buster brain trust for suggestions.

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I suspect Pendraken towed guns and crews would look okay alongside 1/144 vehicles, but I'm much less sure the Pendraken trucks, halftracks, and AA-mounted vehicles would look quite as good next to F-Toys or Dragon 1/144 tanks. The scale difference between gashopon 1/144 and Pendraken's smaller 1/150 or 1/160 would stand out more.

I know about Pithead, but it's just as off-scale as Pendraken, and harder to order.

It would be really cool to get pre-painted vehicles, but all the 1/144 gashopon vehicles I've seen are AFVs (except a few SdKfz 251 variants).

What other options should I look at?

- Ix

PS: I have a lot of 1942-1943 RAF planes (Hurricanes, Spitfires, Typhoons) that need ground targets, so I'm definitely getting one of these:

I don't care if it's a bit off-scale. It will be unique on the table and it's probably a bit too big already.

Softskins
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Vehicle mounted Quad 2cm flak
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2cm flak, no picture though
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Various halftracks
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train stuff 2nd row down
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pre painted halftracks
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Armoured locomotive with cars, was to be released last October, don't know if it was.
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Vehicle mounted 2cm flak, command cars etc…
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A few more.
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One more. :)
1999.co.jp/eng/10714184

I think that as long as you don't mix the vehicles in with others, side by side, or close on the tabletop, the slightly smaller 1/150th scale minis will be fine.

They're only about 4% smaller, assuming accurate model sculpting by the respective manufacturers. That works out to be about a 1mm – 2mm size difference for many models.

Pendraken seems to have a very nice selection of AA guns, and vehicles armed with them.

World Tank Museum offers the Wirbelwind in 1/144th scale.

Where possible, I prefer to stick to 1/144th scale too, but when items are unavailable or far more expensive, one sometimes has to compromise.

I'd like to do a few scenarios too, mixing aircraft with ground targets. I need some Typhoons though, and the WWII variants that come prepainted and assembled are sadly pretty rare and overly expensive. I hope they do a rerun of those soon.

A US air attack on a Me-262 base during the late war, with fighters, could be interesting, with lots of flak emplacements to protect it, and FW-190Ds flying topcover.

Some train-busting scenarios might be fun too, using Typhoons, and/or P-47s, P-38s, and P-51s.

I have at least a dozen each of all those, and now Tempests too.

I doubt F-Toys, Takara, Bandai, or Dragon will make any more Typhoons in 1/144 scale. I suspect the gashopon WWII plane market is very nearly dead. I'm currently looking into 3D printing rescaled 1/200 STLs as a way to supplement my large 1/144 aircraft collection. I got a full set of 8x Tempests just this year by buying 4 complete 10-kit sets of the F-Toys Wing Kit Collection Vol.2 from BCMini. I received 6x 2A kits and 2x 2S kits, but I like to have my planes in sets of 4 squadron schemes, so I added a yellow stripe on the wings of two 2A kits, and ordered decals from miscmini.com to give them all unique serial numbers appropriate to their respective squadrons.

As far as size differences: I appreciate the opinion. However, I will be mixing vehicles together in a close area as road columns or vehicle parks. I think with vehicles that differ greatly in size impression I can get away with slightly different scales (e.g., I can get all my trucks and emplaced guns in 10mm scale while the AFVs are all 1/144), but I don't want to be putting out a mix of 1/144 and 10mm Hanomags or something.

If I can find them cheap, I'll have to get a couple Wirbelwinds. They actually aren't a lot of use for my gaming (rare and 1944-45 only), but I think they are sewpurr kewl.

- Ix

Those look really great.

Thanks for sharing your photo.

I suppose I should buy at least a couple of them anyway, despite the exorbitant price, since the plastic kits I've bought of the Tempests (Chinese knockoffs now) have poor decals, so the need to purchase those on the secondary market increases their already high base price.

I need some Tempests too, to fight my late war MEs, FW-190Ds, and TA-152s.

Tempests
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The Minicraft and Revell models are pretty awful, I wouldn't pay good money for them. Mark 1 models are usually pretty decent, but I think they are also out of production now, so get them while you can.

- Ix