"Does anyone game with 'Mastercast' metal tank models?" Topic

In helping someone clear out an estate, I found a number of small metal tanks marked comet, or mastercast.

I'm wondering if these were just for playing with, or if some people used them for wargaming.

Some of them were nice, but others were fiddly and too delicate for gaming.

Duke Siefried ended up with the Comet line, and he produced them as gaming pieces.

Do you know what scale they were supposed to be?

Scale, no. Marketed as 15mm.

I have some (about 5 different) and they scale out at about 110th.
Not a great problem on the table.

Peter Pig started/invented the 1/100th match (1981) with 15mm, in the knowledge that 1/100th is too large (wrong) , but looks good along side chunky and based 15mm figures.

All the other companies followed Peter Pig.

martin

Others can tell me I'm wrong, but if I recall correctly the US Army made some 1/100th scale (or thereabout) models for troop training in WW2. They were made from photographs of enemy tanks and were likely not quite right in scale. I've got a few from flea markets over the years. Then in about the late 1950's or early 1960's a company (Quality Casting?) introduced those for the gaming market. As time passed they gradually updated and corrected the line, but they started with the old military molds which had been passed around from one supplier to another. Comet had a line at that time too if I recall…seems like they were from England. This was all pre-internet of course and you found about about these from magazines like the old Courier. The Quality Casting tanks came in little blue boxes as I recall. I still have mine and they generally compare well in scale to today's 15mm. Not sure there was even infantry to go with them. I think that may have been the start of the 15mm ranges.