When the second edition came out, I remember speculating that the French pieces retained their Russian configuration for two reasons: almost certainly because it was cheaper to do so, but also perhaps to create a selling point for a hypothetical third edition. In the first edition, Italy had German-patterned equipment sculpts, ANZAC had British-patterned equipment sculpts, and France had Russian-patterned equipment sculpts. In the second edition, Italy got its own equipment sculpts on the Europe side and ANZAC got its own equipment sculpts on the Pacific side, and the game also saw the addition of the new AAA piece in nation-specific designs; France, however, kept its Russian equipment pattern. Larry has said that there are no plans for any additional editions of the game at this time…
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=32812.0
…but if a third edition did ever come out, an upgrade of France’s sculpts would be an obvious feature to offer on the European side. What’s not obvious is what corresponding upgrade could be made on the Pacfic side, since all the major powers there now have their own distinctive sculpts. I’d of course love to see China get its own equipment set, but under the OOB rules China wouldn’t have any use for it, except in a very limited way for the artillery and fighter units. And as regards the fighter, which represents the Flying Tigers, we already received some P-40 Warhawks in the 1941 game, so there’s nothing to be gained by having WotC toss one into a hypothetical Pacific 1940 (3rd ed) box. It’s a pity that China wasn’t sufficiently industrialized during WWII to have very much military hardware. Perhaps the way to split the difference for the game would be to find out what kind of hardware China did actually have and to give China some selective unit types to reflect them, along with some appropriate tweaks to the OOB rules. It’s all just wishful thinking – but a fun thing to indulge in nonetheless.
