"Switched to 1/144th for WWII" Topic

After reading all the posts again then doing comparison "looks", I made the switch to 1/144th from 1/160th. Many reasons involved but indeed, the difference (as many of you commented on) IS quite noticeable.

So I am digging out my stash of Can-Do and went on a hunt for other makers of vehicles in this scale. Found Pegasus offering a few, Shapeways (Great service with beautiful vehicles- mine came well packed and are quite fragile. I just cannot afford to get very many. These WILL need basing IMHO.), UStar- Got a Jagdtiger kit. I figure I might ever need just one or two. HIGHLY detailed but many vey small parts (exhaust stacks, tools, jack and even an MG 34 to mount on the rear deck). It took me 4 hours to assemble (did I mention many small parts?), paint and applied decals (came with the kit). The Panther I also got from UStar even comes with a fret of photo etch. I also remembered that I had a box of 1/144th US (and West German) vehicles. AFAIK, nobody else (as I type this) know of that makes 1"144th M-8 Scout car and a Chevy 2.5 ton truck. (The Sherman is also nice- you get 2 each in the kit- Revell Germany 03350 and is listed as for Level 3 modelers. In assembling the duce and a Half, it's more like you need skill level 7! Now I am not a master modeler but I am also not a beginner- it was a tough job for me to get the truck bed built. These vehicles came in their LST kit (yes also in 1/144th!) and Revell was smart enough to offer them without the ship for us gamers. Of course, Victrix is the clear cut leader! Not much there if you want to do North Africa or transport….yet.

So I got with one of the Minifig designers and soon, my AIM line will start offering 1/144th scale "stuff". The first will be 3 PzKfw III models- F,G and H. They will be cast in metal and as of typing this, Victrix has not yet offered them. We have plans to fill holes in Victrix lines with AIM metal offerings as time goes on this year. I will post pictures as soon as I get them for the III's.

Any of you know of other NON-3D printed 1/144th scale WWII makers out there that I missed?

Game on, fellas!

Also found DML (Dragon) with rubber tracks- Yuck, and Pit Road (Interesting!) all in 1/144th. Available in Japan.

Did you take a look at Dragon Panzer Korps?
link
Only other GMC that is not printed that I know of (now that Arrowhead is gone) are these by New Millenium/21st Century Toys.
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Tom,

Glad to hear this!

A PzKpfw III M with Schurzen option would be a good addition too – and one which would allow for damaged/missing skirt panels ideal. Lancer Miniatures makes an M for their '10mm' scale (these close to '12mm'), but w/o this mixed/damaged Schurzen option.

Other plastic manufacturers would be World Tank Museum by Takara (the original WTM pre-assembled/pre-painted collectables – I know you've seen these, but didn't list them above).

Now F-Toys has since released a new series of 1/144th scale plastic kits called "World Tank Museum" (which are pre-painted but unassembled, and excellent).

The Popy "Project Panzer" line was another pre-paint manufacturer (some as unpainted kits too), that came out around 2005. They weren't quite as good as Takara or Dragon, but had some interesting models – like a German E75. I have a British squadron of their Grants for my N. Africa collection (repainted).

One of the sharpest, and usually more expensive of the pre-assembled lines was "Metal Troops Creation", really nice (I got a 25pdr artillery section with their tow Quads for a N. Africa Jock Column), paid $$$ for the two sets of guns, their crews, and the Quads. Also have a platoon of their Stug IVs – that's as rich as I could get for acquiring any of these Metal Troops beauties.

Those Metal Troops Stug IVs mentioned above – might finish my camo painting on these someday, but really neat models.

UshCha will be so pleased!

Machine Head: Thanks for the link to the GMC truck. Bought his last 3, Dragon (ie- DML). Bought one locally but all the nice detail is for naught (for me) with the rubber-band tracks, as I mentioned. Wish the track and running gear were all one piece. I remember bad things about early Tamiya and those type of track arrangements.

Fly X Wire: I think it would not be much of a problem at this stage to have skirts to fit on the PzKfw III. Will keep you informed here. Most of the World Tank Museum stuff is awesome. Problem is that unless you can find someone to sell you the ones you want, they only sell in sets of 10 randomly assorted pieces. Another excellent product. "Metal Troops Creation", could these be the same as "Heavy Hobby" or "Brengun"? Both line are like you say, expensive!!! I checked out my "go-to" Japanese supplier at 1999.co.jp and went thru all their listings of 1/144th scale military (excluding acft). Stug III's will be investigated ( to include having 2 mantlet variations- the basic hull and tracks would be the same). Also noticed that there is not much out there for those seeking North Africa for the British and Italians. Only saw a Grant. Your Stugs look awesome to me! I will need to get my camera working again- lost track of my battery charger!!! (Too busy painting to look harder.) Many thanks for the info!

Robert: Thanks. Hope UshCha is. I am.

Have a look at Red3 miniatures.

The website says they are 1/150 but I bought a couple of samples at a show and they scale really well with Victrix. They are beautiful models with nice, crisp detail!

red3miniatures.co.uk

Tom, we're looking forward to your sneak peeks when ready.

Metal Troops Creations wasn't Brengun, and I've not heard of Heavy Hobby.

There's still a number of Japanese and Chinese companies around that have sold to this scale, and have a few models and kits that still remain in the pipeline, like Pro-Hobby, YSK, Fairy Kikaku, Matuo Kasten, Panzer Depot, and Combat Group Dynamix, though lots of what they had a few years ago as 'exclusives', are now available as 3D Prints.

If you're working towards marketing on a theme, I'd definitely consider going "Western Desert", or early Blitzkrieg/Barbarossa, and the like.

Also, something to consider – entrenchment scenics (platoon strongpoints). I mentioned this to Pete at Anschluss Wargames recently – there's a few companies that make nice buildings for the scale, plenty 3D Printed too, and a number of these offering ruins. What they need to craft are entrenchment positions that fit into these ruins, or right next to the walls and foundations of buildings.

See the top checkpoint in the pic here. I needed a trench piece to butt up against the side of the structure, so cut one of my custom-made lengths in half.

Why doesn't some manufacturer, with a lot better modeling skills than mine, make versatile dug-in scenics that can convert a BUA position into an entrenched position – again – to be easily placed integral "in and amongst" the ruins?

Hello FlyXwire

Pendraken makes WW2 British and Germans 3 men in a trench:-

Fly X Wire: Stug III now in the works! Skirts as of now will come in 2 options- full skirts and damaged ones. Both will be included in the kit for your choice. Casting them to scale in metal may be a bit tricky. We shall see so this is a message of intent at this point. Designer can base it off the now existing masters.

My immediate goal is to focus upon North Africa knowing that the German items we produce for them can also be used in early war Barbarossa. DAK and 8th Army figs in 1/144th will take another 2 months to do them as we envision them.

The Victrix PzKfw IVF comes with the long barrel. I know to make the F1 simply cut down the barrel. Question is "Where?" I did mine at the "ring" closest to the turret. It hangs over just enough to be shorter than the front glacis. Suggestion/comments? There were a few Mk IV with the L-48(?) long barrels that made it to the DAK so using their "G" model seems to be OK. (Am not that much of a purist but works for me.)

The Red3 guys are telling it like it is with regards to "scale" and molding/casting process. Their picture samples look really great, too. Using Pendragon as a sample of 1/150th against Revell and a Shapeways CCKW 2.5 ton truck (Both 1/144th), the Pendraken vehicle is about 1/4 of an inch shorter in length but width is very much smaller (expected because the difference comes in all 3 dimensions). That said, I will use them on my game table as it's more important to be to be "close". The Minifigs (Sculpted to 1:153rd sale master so it comes out of the production molds as close to 1:160th as humanly possible due to mold composition and metal used for natural shrinkage) one is even more noticeable in size. Therefore, my Minifigs collection now becomes the "go to" pile when I do not have enough 1/144th to flush out a unit with. (After I blow the dust off them!)

Thanks for the link.

Grumpy: I'll need to check them out! How tall the figures are are would NOT be an issue and serve the purpose by simply switching out stands.

Thanks! (Will be getting some from the US distributor of Pendragon minis- Dark Horse Hobbies.com . (Hope he has some because he is awaiting for 3 shipments of restocks that are in the "Post Awful" system.) Lately, their service has been less than good.

Tom, those trucks were the ones he had for sale without the box. He has a whole bunch of them with the box but he charges more for them.
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Also the Panzer IV/F1 with the short barrel is available from Victrix.
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Machinehead: We don't need no stinkin' boxes….to paraphrase a famous movie line!

fly wire, fortifications are a real pain. There is the inevitable conflict between ground scale and figure scale. There are merits to both approaches. The ones in the picture look far more correct relative to the ground but make figure placement look odd. There is no right or wrong. Our own trench sytem visually does not even attempt to look artistic, it is produced as a workable representation only and so needs to be wide enough to accommodate our bases at an angle to the normal of the trench line at that position.
The point is you proably need to prompt somebody on exactly what you would like. In the style that you have chosen I'm not sure anybody could do better than yours.
There has always been a debate whether to have separate figure bases in a trench, the Pentagon ones are a good representation of this standard. Howeve our past experience is that the overhead of swapping them for standard bases during a game is impractical taking far too much time, detracting from our enjoyment.

I would be interested as to what you view as the optimum style.

ps what do you do for hull Don markers, equally important now as in WW2,

Grmupy, I like those!

Ush, if Tom were to venture into having buildings made too (for N. Africa as an example), that there would be pre-planning so emplacement scenics like sandbag positions would automatically fit on their roofs, or within the interior dimensions, or butted against the outside walls of any buildings/ruins.

Imagine a shot-up 1/144th scale building, that comes with the usual rubble scatter pieces, but also with entrenchment pieces that could be fitted within the structure's interior, or next to the foundations inside or outside, to transform the piece into a fortified position.

Like you're hinting at here, these extra building parts could function as position indicators, or remain hidden until spotted and revealed in-game. – so not placed into a BUA or building until encountered.

Now swapping standard bases out for entrenched bases can present problems – and especially when those don't fit into [or on] some of these fine-looking 1/144th scale buildings we can get, and how practical is it dropping stands down into these small structures, even if their roofs might come off?

So, I'm not sure of an optimum style, but I'd like to see buildings and entrenchment scatter that are designed to work together, to transform model terrain into designed-for, defensive positions.

Fly By suggests: "Now swapping standard bases out for entrenched bases can present problems – and especially when those don't fit into [or on] some of these fine-looking 1/144th scale buildings we can get, and how practical is it dropping stands down into these small structures, even if their roofs might come off?"

How about this idea? Place the stand that you want to occupy the building and place a little green monopoly house behind it. As long as the green house is with the base, the stand is in the model building. (For remaining in the structure but pinned, see below.) How many can a house hold? What will fit touching the rear wall of the model building. Reduce movement of those bases for directing positions going in and for reforming when coming out. That takes time and if insufficient movement left upon reaching the structure, it will have to wait till next turn to enter and deploy- it is considered to be outside until then. For going prone (without prepared positions) place a green monopoly house behind the stand denoting it can still fire without penalty. (Or use whatever marker pulls your trigger.) If pinned, change to a red monopoly hotel denoting they are restricted for movement and firing until they rally back to green house which will allow them to move and fire again normally. Since the squads /fireteams of the platoon are supposed to support each other add one pip for every stand in THAT platoon that fires upon the pinning enemy stand. (The use of some die roll must be met in order to pass the suppressed situation- fellow platoon stands value is a die modifier to help the pinned unit recover quicker (if at all!) Treat vehicle MGs in support the same way. Fire against the pinning stand(s) is not affected by this un-pinning effect- their fire counts in addition to the un-pinning benefit to pinned stand(s). If you use morale checks in your rules, attempts to unsuppress happen then in turn sequence. Hull down for vehicles should be pretty obvious based upon model scenery. If not so obvious, again, place some marker behind the vehicle IF you want that advantage. You forget, tough luck- you remain open to fire. Remove that marker once the vehicle moves ANY amount.

How do you guys deal with minefields on the table?

Tom, for North Africa (other theaters too), coiled wire might be a similar and easy way to indicate an entrenched position.

Also, with photo-etched fencing and coiled wire, this can be sculpted onto bases to indicate concertina wired and/or minefield sections.

If you use barbed wire to denote a minefield you lose that element of surprise. If you are using recon correctly, minefields can be identified, sometimes with the loss of a recon vehicle's mobility or loss. Same with dismounted patrols. If you reverse yourself into the mind of your enemy, you can reasonably surmise where a minefield COULD be. "The open area between two clumps of trees would be a great place to place one as it would funnel any advancing force into a kill zone." But that might require gamers to actually do some research- what a concept for those playing historical games?

I have heard about minefields being annotated on a 3/5 card with x-y coordinates. "3 inches to the right of the farmhouse then 5 inches 90 degrees to the left", That card is placed faced down at a corner of the table. When the owning player believes the enemy has entered into his minefield, he stops play, pulls the card and measures to see if they are. Mines attack those stands inside that area. If they are not, then the enemy now has discovered the minefield with luck of no casualties. If the minefield owning player forgets he has a minefield that the enemy just passed thru, then too bad- the enemy successfully navigated the minefield. Thought that was a really great way to deal with minefields and still have fun playing the game.

"Marking of Field

The front edge of forward minefields is often not marked. The rear edge normally is marked, usually with a trip wire on short stakes, though cattle-fence, concertina wire, and stone cairns are sometimes used. Cases have been reported of the rear edge being unmarked.

A common marking is a single row of concertina wire running along the center of a field parallel to the rows of mines. in a large minefield there may be several rows of mines in front unmarked, then a row of concertina wire, more mines, then concertina wire, and so on, finishing up with a row of concertina wire on the rear edge.

The marking of fields by furrows, commonly used at Tobruk, has only once been reported at El Alamein, and in that case the field was a dummy one.

Only one case has been reported of continuous wire running irregularly within a field. It is believed that skull and crossbones indicate the presence of antitank mines or booby traps.

In the rear areas, enemy minefields may be expected to be well marked with cattle-fences and warning notices in German and/or Italian."

link

Minefields in the desert were as much about terrain denial and delay, that the defensive artillery would then take advantage of.

Dummy minefields could cause similar results of denial and delay, but they needed to be marked too – to complete the deception effect.

One of the interesting tasks of the reconnaissance troops was attempting to observe where the enemy patrols moved along when they patrolled, to discover the gaps.

There's one battle report from Op. Battleaxe, where a British armored car troop with inferior Marmon-Harringtons was tasked with going toe-to-toe with heavier German 8-wheelers, just long enough to discern the path the enemy patrol used to approach and travel along in the forward position.

The Brits were bound to fail in their mission if they engaged in a protracted firefight with the 20mm-armed enemy cars – but they succeeded in getting back with the valuable info needed.

Always thought this type of mission would make for an interesting game – and needing some equally interesting victory conditions.

Flyxwire, i see where youbwould like go go but for us its not a viable solution. in our urban areas the oversized (to ground scale) mean they are toob close to even fit in without othet compromised like having to wideca fire arc to be credible. its all about what arevyour critical psrameters.
Trenches, life can be he'll. Isolated slit trenches just mark them on the map, well that's cheating but we use Kalistra Hexon II.

Minefielda – The owner cam mark it or not and must declare if it's buried or surface laid. Recently surface laid my be obvious, 5 weeks later not so much. Real may need marking so the enemy can't work out which ones are real and which ones are dummy. The map notes density, we have 3 standards nuisance, tactical and blocking (real technical terminology). Trouble is propertly layed minefields can have depths measured in km's. at 4 mines a meter footage you may need to plough the lot to avoid a 99% kill rate for the first vehicle. ago look up minefields round Kusk in Ww2

TRENCH SYSTEMS
Proper trench sytems are hell, we do have a system to make it practical but it's not for the faint heated or novice. Plus it is unsuitable for folk interested in the art work as it has to accommodate our normal troop bases. We have done it, and it's fun but not for the feint hearted and is a game off itself. Fight close in a very complex enviroment where so body has to carry boxes of grades, like they did in WW2.

Regreablyy we have had to add extra "rules" well clarifications you need to understand the detailed topography we assume and things like passing folk in the comes trench section, how many folk in a personal bunker (model to ground scale issues). Dissapointing but but it's inevitable. Even then there is a lot of styalisation required, Real Zig Zags don't work, base size and all that. They will only work in conjunction with out rules so even putting them up here seems of little value to you.

Ush, a well-explained, detailed summation you've written here.

So much of our miniatures gaming and terrain use, just depends on our own 'grounds' – our scaling(s) chosen, mounting conventions, terrain collection modelled, and for what theater of operations is targeted, oh, and the big one….$$$. Then, as you mentioned, how does a set of rules attempt to make generalization about any terrain types work, for what a general gamer might have to represent on their tables?

Can it be in doubt, that when looking at pictures of someone's game table here, online, or in magazines, that we're only seeing their take on what a battlefield might look like, but revealing how they're attempting to present it in miniature, and then have a set of game rules available that can manage that representation (as you've expressed – often requiring customized rules to pull off).

This common hobby of ours immediately begins to separate us as we begin the process of transferring our gaming desires onto any miniatures tabletop. Maybe only such game systems as Flames Of War have ever come close to enabling 'universal' coordination between rules, miniatures, and terrain. At some point, freedom of expression almost always seems to get the way of standardization (or maybe the miniatures company itself throws in a wrench to mess up the "commonplace" too?).

A really great discussion, guys. I'm sure someone will tackle this issue with some new and innovative ideas after trying out different ways to approach the issue. Well, we can hope such discussions help bring us closer to an acceptable solution for many.

Oh I hope that's another one of your teases Tom.

We must be careful though, to not run afoul of the advertising police in the process (and I'll accept some of the blame for that too). ;)

As an illustration I realised my cold war post Village – design the tough one. has an example of what we see as a village. Clearly our type of design utterly fails to be able to accommodate the real world trench sytems so well portrayed in Fxwire's picture.

If anybody has pics of there take on this issue it would be appreciated, I am always looking for inspiration for new s en a Rio types.

I am no fan of FOW BUT have seen a few games played. Never seen a trench system attempted. The last game fron the Big Guys's that covered this at least in part was Phil Barkers 1925 to 1990's rules and that was literally decades ago. Since then the Big Boy's have been dimming down dramatically.

Only in wild outposts like this post is history and tactics given any credibility.
Needless to say our trench system will not credibly interface with buildings. It works OK for Fortifications like in Ukraine where they are in the middle of a field.

FlyXwire: Sad because we have been paying for a banner ad for several months! Bills stats say it has been viewed several thousands of times yet I have never seen it once! Wish Herr Bill would have communicated with me before he nuked the thread! Maybe he needs to start a bucket called "Know your advertisers". (Insert a sad and smiley face here.)

UshCha says: "Only in wild outposts like this post is history and tactics given any credibility."

Agreed! Ran across this little gem and despite the sub-title really deals with tactics from Division on down: "Panzer Rollen. The logistics of a Panzer Division from Primary Sources" Edited and Introduced by Bob Carruthers, Pen and Sword Books, ISBN: 1473868807 Looks like he found a German manual for Division commanders, translated it and kept the numbered talking points as reference points for easy referral later. Really well presented in a logical order and an easy read. It is in two parts: Part 1 "The German Armored Division"; Part 2 "The German Motorized Infantry Regiment". Covers advances, breakthroughs, pursuit, defense, columnar movement, recon, security forces, communication procedures and tactics, use of Anti Air deployment, mission for recon units, assignment and use of combat engineers to scratch the surface of topics covered. As I am reading I found many similarities to the way the US Army operates today!

So in supporting what UchCha said, I suggest this read to the like minded among us.

Thanks for the tip Tom – got this book ordered now (and the price was very reasonable…..from the big outfit [that shall remain unnamed] where I picked it up from). :)))

I am pretty sure you will find it really interesting and useful.

Now F-Toys has since released a new series of 1/144th scale plastic kits called "World Tank Museum" (which are pre-painted but unassembled, and excellent).

I have many Tiger I, Panther, T-34/76. JgPz IV, Nashorns and anti-tank guns for sale.

treadheadgames AT g----.com

Wolfhag

Have seen some pictures of the F-Toys items and look very good but they are very expensive. Worth it for a few items where you will only use a few. For example their 88 (which is nicely weathered by the way) looks very good but looks like $15 USD a pop. Given you might only use say 1 or 2 might be worth the splurge.

Assembly I am sure are like the aircraft series they and a few others have. Really snap together (though I use a strategic spot of glue here and there). Careful removal from the parts tree and shouldnt be an issue otherwise.

Well gents I have also been looking at switching to 10/12 mm. Been gaming for a long time and getting back to ww2… Finding 6 mm just doesn't hold the appeal any more.

Thanks to all for your comments & links to other suppliers. Time to get started on I think the desert.

Antioch, welcome to the club!

Now F-Toys has since released a new series of 1/144th scale plastic kits called "World Tank Museum" (which are pre-painted but unassembled, and excellent).

Those look like a marked improvement over the Battle Tank Collection I complained about:

The BTC models look great, but have far too many tiny, fiddly pieces, and the rubber-band style tracks look awful and are very hard to get mounted. In fact, I found them impossible to mount – I can't figure out how one would install them without breaking the wheels off. Even if I got them installed, they'd look awful – IRL tracks don't stretch tight like that, they sag.

The F-Toys WTM tanks appear to still have many fiddly pieces, but the tracks are a single cast plastic piece with the road wheels, a vastly better way of doing tank tracks. After my very negative experiences with the F-Toys BTC tanks, I committed to only collecting pre-assembled or 3D printed tanks, but I'll look into the F-Toys WTM tanks. I want Panthers with the polka-dot camo, and I'm not keen on trying to paint it myself.

WARNING: Be careful with your searches. Both F-Toys and Takara released 1/144 tank model kits named World Tank Museum, and you can't keep search engines from showing both. I have a ton of the Takara models, and I like them, but most are unobtanium now, so will be quite expensive.

- Ix