What scale are the units ?

[Madru551an3]

I’m looking at making an entire game of custom map and units. Are the units closer to 15mm, 17mm or 20mm?

[CWO Marc]

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=34109.0
knp7765
A&A.org Battleship
Here are some rough scales for A&A units:

Infantry = 1/72 or maybe just a little smaller.

Tanks and vehicles = 1/285

Aircraft = Fighters are bigger than 1/700, I think they are about 1/600 scale. Tactical Bombers are about the same. Strategic Bombers are a smaller scale, but I’m not sure what it is.

Ships = Varies from capital ships to the smaller vessels. Battleships and Carriers are smaller than 1/2400. It’s closer to 1/3000 or maybe even 1/3500. I’m not sure about the smaller vessels but they are bigger in scale. If Destroyers and Submarines were at the same scale as the Battleships, we would barely be able to see them, much less play with them on the board.

[Madru551an3]

Thanks

[Nowhere Man]

The ships aren’t even in scale to themselves in the game… the Russian Battleship (I forget the name, but its a WW1 dreadnought) is the same length and size as the American battleship  (Iowa class)… if they were at the same scale, the Iowa would dwarf the Russian dreadnought… the battleship scales are all over the map, country by country and are not consistent  (the same is true for tanks as a Japanese Type 95 is just as big as a German Tiger tank)… Marc is quoting ballpark averages, but about the only units truely on a consistent scale are the infantry (except the ANZAC goliaths)… tanks and battleships are especially on varying scales country by country.

[CWO Marc]

@Nowhere:

The ships aren’t even in scale to themselves in the game… the Russian Battleship (I forget the name, but its a WW1 dreadnought) is the same length and size as the American battleship  (Iowa class)… if they were at the same scale, the Iowa would dwarf the Russian dreadnought… the battleship scales are all over the map, country by country and are not consistent  (the same is true for tanks as a Japanese Type 95 is just as big as a German Tiger tank)… Marc is quoting ballpark averages, but about the only units truely on a consistent scale are the infantry (except the ANZAC goliaths)… tanks and battleships are especially on varying scales country by country.

Yes, that’s right.  The closest thing to scale consistency that A&A sculpts have – and even here, there are enough exceptions to make life interesting – is that sculpts of one particular unit type tend to be fairly similar to each other in size, and tend to contrast noticeably with the size of the sculpts of other unit types.  As an example, the strategic bombers are all fairly big, the fighters are all fairly small, and the tactical bombers are all roughly intermediate in size between the strategic bombers and the fighters.  The point of this convention is to make it fairly easy to look at a sculpt and identify what type of unit it is.  The downside is that it produces unrealistic scale variations relative to how big the actual WWII vehicles and ships and weapons really were.

[DMcLaren]

Aircraft, fighters at least, are 1/500 scale.  You’ll find 600 is just a tiny bit too small.  I actually compared the measurement of a game piece A&A Spitfire to the real thing and the math was something like 1/505, so within the margin.

DD’s are 1/2400, and I believe CV’s and BB’s are 1/4800.

[Trenacker]

Infantry are in 1/72 scale, and Airfix, HaT, or Pegasus plastics in the same scale won’t look out-of-place, but remember that the out-of-box pieces are up on fairly thick circular stands.

[spencer8030]

Yes, the fighter aircraft are 1/500.  It’s sad to because there is not a market out there that makes 1/500 other than HBG. There are so many different fighters I would love to add to my game, but nothing out there.

[DMcLaren]

A few shops make 500 scale at Shapeways.  I’ve gotten Hawker Hurricanes, Spitfires, and Bf-109’s in 500 scale from SNAFU store.  HBG’s planes match up great with A&A pieces, too, and some are even better, like their Stuka G’s.