Re: Field Marshal Games Pieces Project Discussion thread

We have the Panther as our “late war” Tank (oob)

I second the Panzer IV as the logical choice.

I have to disagree with you on the Panzer IV.  That was actually a pretty sturdy tank and I think comparable to the Panther (Panzer V).  They both had 75mm main guns, although I think the Panther’s had a longer barrel.
The Panzer III on the other hand was closer in comparison to the Carro Armato M13/40.  The Panzer III had a 50mm gun while the Carro Armato had a 47mm gun.  Armor was roughly equivalent although I think the Panzer III had better performance.
Also, the WOTC OOB tanks are some of the best medium to heavy tanks from WW2 – T-34, Panther, Sherman, Matilda.  The exception being Japan as they went with the Type 95 which is a light tank.
Therefore, for uniformity sake, I think FMG should make the Armor #1 (tank) one of the light to medium versions for each country and maybe save the heavy tanks for a later set.

Russia = T-26
Germany = Panzer III
Britain = Crusader
Japan = Type 97 Chi-Ha medium tank(since they already have the light tank)
USA = M-3 Stuart (nicknamed “Honeys” by the Brits)
Italy = ALREADY DONE

As for SPGs, I’m not as knowledgable about them.  I know a few of the German pieces – Hummel, Elephant, StuG III.  I’m also familiar with the American M-7 Priest and the Japanese had one called a Type 1 Ho-Ni.  I don’t know about British or Russian SPGs.

@FieldMarshalGames:

New Sculpt complete!  ITALIAN TRUCK

I like him!  Most certainly Italian  (strangely, one of the old WWII movies I watched recently had one of those…)

As for German SPGs, I think either the Hummel or the Wespe. I believe the Stug III was an Assault Gun, and the Elephant (or Ferdinand) was a Tank Destroyer.

I’ll definitely go with a Panzer III - knp made a very thoughtfull post.

EDIT: and I agree 1000000% with his tank list - I love the T-26 idea.

OK so from what I recall FMG was producing 12 tanks per nation set.
Is that 6 of each sculpt?

And I don’t recall any mention of the inclusion of SPGs by FMG.
Where are we getting that from?

As for terminology, there’s little distinction in the various types of SPG, they’re essenitially all variants on turret-less design and the nomenclature implies their envisioned tactical employment, direct firesupport in general v. specializing in anti-tank, which is splitting hairs on a level a little too tactical for this scale of game, IMTO.

Furthermore, I don’t think you’d never find a concentration of SPGs sufficiently high that it’d warrant a piece / formation token… like a SPG Division.

#621

@allboxcars:

OK so from what I recall FMG was producing 12 tanks per nation set.
Is that 6 of each sculpt?

And I don’t recall any mention of the inclusion of SPGs by FMG.
Where are we getting that from?

As for terminology, there’s little distinction in the various types of SPG, they’re essenitially all variants on turret-less design and the nomenclature implies their envisioned tactical employment, direct firesupport in general v. specializing in anti-tank, which is splitting hairs on a level a little too tactical for this scale of game, IMTO.

Furthermore, I don’t think you’d never find a concentration of SPGs sufficiently high that it’d warrant a piece / formation token… like a SPG Division.

#621

The only place I can see mention of SPG’s being included is in the “Poll : FMG US Aircraft” post where Jeremy says;

@FieldMarshalGames:

@Variable:

@FieldMarshalGames:

We will keep the two tanks for USA! (We already have the sculpts)  …just wanted to explore the issue.

Thinking of a Sherman redux and a Stuart? What’s on your mind FMG?

In most cases we would like to have the standard “ICONIC” tank for that nation and an alternative…  either a SPG / or Heavy Tank.  Like the Pershing tank? or M7 tank destroyer?

As you can see with ITALY we had a standard tank and a “Heavier” Armored piece SPG

If you ask me this implies that there will be 2 models of “armor” for each nation … wether it is a light/medium/heavy tank or SPG depends on the nation and what looks best/is most iconic, at least IMO.

And yes, having Tank and an SPG is pretty much splitting hairs at this level.  Go with what looks the best if you ask me, regardless of it’s classification.

the Truck is beautiful

Yes I agree with IL; SPA (Self Propelled Artillery) is the term given to things like the Hummel, Wespe, Bison etc. AG (Assault Gun) is for things like the STuG III, Sturmtiger, sIG 33B etc. And obviously, TD (Tank Destroyers) is for things like the Nashorn, Jagdpanther, Marder, Hetzer etc. And I suppose that Self Propelled Gun is a common collective term for all these different classes/variations.

I agree that we do not need this level of discrimination between the classes of Armoured units for the Global or indeed Theatre level games. However, if FMG are only producing these sets to replace the WOTC units, then yes, it would be great to have two types of Tank for each nation. Italy has a light Tank and a SPG so far. I for one, intend to use these FMG pieces not just for A&A, but also for other games (including my own) and it would be fantastic to have SPGs on a Tactical or even Operational level. This is my opinion from a historical standpoint.

Also, from an aesthetic stanpoint, I am somewhat scratching my head over the sight of SPGs on the Global and Theatre level. It just doesn’t look right, as these uinits were normally a Brigade-sized attachment to the Armoured Divisions. However, if we do indeed get 6 Tanks and 6 SPGs for Italy, then I can’t see it being too much of a problem as I will use the Tanks first, and only use SPGs if I have to.  :-)

@Imperious:

Its called SPA

Self Propelled Artillery

Actually I’ve usually heard the singular vehicle or model usually referred to as SPG ("This ASU-85 is a SPG…) and SPA used for the type collectively (“The defensive sac will be held by SPA and AT in depth”)… mind you I don’t think I can recall anyone misunderstanding the material at hand if one term was favoured over the other exclusively.

[Mind you I’ve never heard of SPA being called a “class of [b]tank”. That term being reserved for a horse of another colour altogether in my experience. Anyway, tomato / tomato…]

@Imperious:

FMG is making different classes of tanks:

And I still can’t recall FMG saying they were making three armoured pieces per nation set, including one SPG.

@Imperious:

SPA are very much needed and a major component of armored formations.

Which is indeed my exact point. SPA is a formation asset and does not comprise a formation so SPA-heavy that it would be a SPA unit such as a 1 SPA Div. Even in today’s highly mechanized formations I don’t believe you achieve concentrations that merit such a piece.

#631

And I guess this raises the key point that I see coming up elsewhere in the Variants forum… in FMG’s view are they producing pieces to supplement WOTC’s pieces or to replace them?

So should we be anticipating a FMG T-34?
Or will they “aim off” from what WOTC already produced?

#634

They are producing pieces that will supplement / and or replace the OOb pieces.

@reloader-1:

They are producing pieces that will supplement / and or replace the OOb pieces.

So really the gist of your opinion could be simplified to:

@reloader-1:

They are producing pieces.

#637

In other words, BOTH!

For the person who wants to completely REPLACE his pieces, FMG has them covered by producing full sets of pieces, in the same colors but different tanks/planes/etc that come OOB.

For the person who wants to SUPPLEMENT his pieces, FMG has them covered by producing full sets of pieces in the same colors but different tanks/planes/etc that come OOB.

Put it this way - they are producing unique pieces that can be used as a stand-alone set, or in conjuction with the OOB pieces.

The objectives are not mutually exclusive.

@reloader-1:

…FMG has them covered by producing full sets of pieces, in the same colors but different tanks/planes/etc that come OOB.

Really?
I haven’t seen FMG make that particular statement. That they will not produce the same vehicles that WOTC did.

Please provide a quote indicating that decision has been made.
It will simplify a lot of threads herein.

@reloader-1:

The objectives are not mutually exclusive.

Really?
So in your opinon, FMG can produce a fleet of KV1s and Honeys instead of T-34s and Shermans and that business decision will give equal weight to satisfying people who want to entirely replace the OOB pieces?
Those people won’t mind having “less iconic” pieces on the map?

Hmmm no IMTO FMG has to have some idea of where they’re going with this project beyond cranking out neat looking toys and the supplement or replace decision is key to selecting sculpts.

#638

@allboxcars:

@reloader-1:

…FMG has them covered by producing full sets of pieces, in the same colors but different tanks/planes/etc that come OOB.

Really?
I haven’t seen FMG make that particular statement. That they will not produce the same vehicles that WOTC did.

Please provide a quote indicating that decision has been made.
It will simplify a lot of threads herein.

It has been stated by Jeremy of FMG several times over that they want to make sculpts, wherever possible that are NOT the same as the OOB A&A sculpts.  105 Pages in this thread plus the dozens of pages in other threads is too much to search through to prove the point to anyone.

I tried to look through like 20 pages and gave up - I know Jeremy said it (FMG), but I’ll leave it up to him to tell you that.

Ya know I thought 100+ pages but you say it’s blatantly obvious so clearly I won’t need to look thru all of them and besides Jeremy doesn’t post too often……

Anyway it couldn’t find that commitment to selecting different vehicles than WOTC did (forget about repeated “multiple times”)…

Actually THIS seems to be FMG’s guiding principle:

@FieldMarshalGames:

As for Naval units and Air units we will stick with the ICONIC types.

Now on certain specific units, FMG has another idea…
@FieldMarshalGames:

What do ya’l think about the Liberator?  It was actually the most common US bomber of the war and was produced more than an other US aircraft.  I want to do something DIFFERENT from the WOTC units.

But then what happened to the Italian bomber?
@FieldMarshalGames:

If I remember correctly…it is.  it is the same Italian bomber than comes with AA50

So personally I’d think if Jeremy has asserted anything it’s the principle of iconic choice eh?
@FieldMarshalGames:

Just wanted to mention also that I REALLY like the Corsair.  It was a fighter/Tac bomber.

If it was only up to me I would use it as the Tac bomber…  But Im sure most will wnat a more “iconic” Tac bomber for the USA.

I just don’t see this commitment to produce other models….

So maybe, since people are going on and on about what vehicles FMG should produce, it makes sense to raise the question with FMG eh?
For example, is there a point to researching and suggesting a Tank #1 AND a Tank #2 when that nation has a clearly iconic tank?

Anyway I leave you with this:
@FieldMarshalGames:

For the record I think the stock AAA pieces are great!  We just want to make something DELUXE and really cool… as well as being Historically accurate.

#639

It seems to me that FMG will replace some OOB pieces where it seems reasonable, but I am certain that there has not been any commitment to replace all OOB pieces.  Allboxcars has already summarized FMG’s posts on the subject, but I would just like to add that one of the Italian tank molds has already replicated the OOB M13/40 from AA50 (albeit with far greater detail of course).

Although I wouldn’t mind a number of OOB models replaced where there exists a reasonable alternative (German tank, Japanese CV, US CA, US Fighter, most UK naval units), I don’t want to see every single piece replaced simply for the sake of replacing them for house rules. Many players, myself included, will never use the poor quality WoTC pieces with the new FMG ones - thus, I think we will want our one set of playable pieces (FMG) to make use of units which strike a good balance between being iconic, seeing widespread use, and representing large-scale national production.

More later…