"Microscale Motorcycles--French and Others" Topic

I appear to be hitting the same wall with France that I have with Italy--plenty of motorcycle units in the OOB, but none available from the manufacturers. If someone can show me where I'm wrong, I'd very much appreciate it. I'd also be interested in what other microscale wargamers are doing for a workaround.

Brief rant. The world of historical miniature wargaming is full of people who tell me they do microscale so they can game battles and not skirmishes. That may be true in SYW or Napoleonics, but presumably the nice people at Adler, GHQ, Irregular, Heroics & Ros and others know their customer base. Said customer base demands some pretty obscure and rare tracked vehicles, but doesn't seem to have much interest in scouting and screening. Not so much a battle as a tank shoot-out, perhaps?

Unfair, to many, I know. But this is getting seriously frustrating.

I believe that GHQ has motorcycles

link

I think those are German but at that scale a coat of paint covers may sins

Also Scotia Grendal has some

link

Agreed. There are strange and glaring omissions all over the place. Try and find a Zil-130. The Soviets used thousands and thousands of these trucks. But if you really need all 38 Sherman variants, we got you covered….

Thank you Frederick. Yes, actually several microscale manufacturers produce German motorcycle troops. The problem is that no one I can find makes anyone else's. I don't paint up German infantry as French or Italian in microscale, so I'm looking really hard for some solution other than "paint conversion."

You know, if I could find microscale motorcycles without riders, I could put them at the back of stands like held horses for dismounted cavalry. But every one I can find has a German cast with it. You'd think the Wehrmacht held the patent.

And my (partial) apologies! I was looking in the wrong place. Irregular offers both generic motorcyclists and what are evidently "empty" motorcycles in their WWI range. An order has been placed to fill both gaps.

All my 6mm motorcycle units, German, Russian, Rumanian, Italian etc are H&R German motorcycle teams painted appropriate colours. Any troops on bicycles are also all just H&R German bicycle troops painted the right colour.

I suppose someone might make nationality specific m/cycles, but they are so small I don't really care. I've got an idea that Scotia might do generic motorcycles?

I do sometimes put some appropriate infantry on the base e.g. my Bersaglieri have a mix of motorcycles and infantry figures.

Just checked, yes, Scotia do generic motorcycles.

Head swaps?

Sorry Robert (couldn't resist). :)))

Sadly FlyXwire, no one seems to sell separate WWII French and Italian heads in 6mm. Yet another gap to be filled.

Same boat here. No one does the 2 up motorcycle & rider that was a big part of the Italian forces in WWII and very identifiable even in 6mm.

I appear to be hitting the same wall with France that I have with Italy--plenty of motorcycle units in the OOB, but none available from the manufacturers. … I'd also be interested in what other microscale wargamers are doing for a workaround.

So here is what one other microscale wargamer has done.

I believe that GHQ has motorcycles

I think those are German but at that scale a coat of paint covers may sins.

I have indeed implemented my French motorcycle company using GHQ's German motorcycles.

For me it was a little more than a coat of paint, but not much more.

I found that the helmets were not very clearly detailed -- this appears to be one of GHQ's older masters/castings, and did not have the level of crisp detailing we have come to expect on their newer infantry. Given the nature of the French motorcycle helmets, I found no visible conflict. No head-swaps needed, to my eye.

However …

The French sidecars have a sort of "boat" shape to them. This was not the case with German sidecars. On this, I just had to suffer through it -- I did not find it profitable to reshape the sidecars -- too fragile and not enough material available. Started to try, and quickly gave it up and just went with it as-is.

(This experiment left me with one unusable sidecar.)

However I did make mods to the MGs. First, the GHQ models come with an MG on every side-car. No one, not even the Germans, did this. So most of the side cars got their MGs clipped off. For those that remained I added a small slice of plastic sheet for a top-mounted magazine (for the French FM24/29 LMG).

Another rant is that none of the manufacturers offer empty / parked motorcycles. The motorcycle troops did not fight mounted, but moved to advantageous positions quickly and then dismounted to set up for the fight.

So I clipped off the figures on a number of my motorcycle combos and put them all on a single base to represent the unit's dismounted motorcycles. I don't have the flexibility of each platoon going somewhere separate, as I only had enough extra motorcycles to do one set of dismounted motorcycles.

All in all a compromised solution, but still an interesting enough unit to be valued in my French force.

No one does the 2 up motorcycle & rider that was a big part of the Italian forces in WWII and very identifiable even in 6mm.

I share this frustration. Before I committed my German motorcycles to a French force, I tried to kit-bash them to serve as Italians.

The GHQ models provide the motorcycles separately from the sidecars. I put some effort into mounting a figure as a second rider, using old C-in-C infantry figures with slung rifles (very thin and spindly legs, making them more suitable for bending into shape). It was, sadly, a fool's errand, and produced nothing useful.

The one motorcycle without a sidecar, left over from the experiments, was profitably used to make a dispatch rider, which might serve my French, Romanian or even US forces.

That's been my experience.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

All Mark 1 said and more. It may be some pictures were reversed at some point over the years but pictures I have seen show the sidecar on other than cast sides. I think it was the Italians. Also the Italian motorcycles were a little longer making the 2 up (I assume) easier and harder to model/modify.