Re: Field Marshal Games Pieces Project Discussion thread

@Imperious:

I’m wondering about the battleships.  Why go with the Pennsylvania class?  That class includes the USS Pennsylvania and USS Arizona, both commissioned in 1916.  Seems like kind of an old model of BB to go with.  I would have went with the North Carolina or South Dakota class if not the Iowa class.  Then again, an older battleship like that will make for more variety.

This suggestion would allow the US to have an early war battleship. Of her 16 or so starting battleships, they all more or less looked like this Pennsylvania class.  The OOB unit and the FMG choice are very close making them both too similar. The Iowa and Missouri class are too similar looking

The new pieces should be different from OOB wherever possible. IMO

The Essex class carrier looks too much like the OOB piece. If you had the Lexington it would be a different looking unit and convey an early war looking unit.  Compare the Essex to the Enterprise….the difference is negligible.

Yeah, I don’t think that’s true at all; now if you compare the (original) Wasp to the Yorktown class (which included the Enterprise, the original Hornet and the original Yorktown) there you see nearly identical ships; as I said earlier, the Wasp was just a Yorktown class shortened a little so as to squeak the US total carrier tonnage in under the treaty limits.  But I don’t agree that the Essex looks too much like the Wasp.  I mean, yeah, OK they’re both flat-tops with superstructures… but the superstructures aren’t the same, the deck shape isn’t the same, the elevator arrangement isn’t the same, the Essex has the superfiring twin 5"/38’s on either side of the superstructure, and it’s significantly bigger.  And the last is key to me: if FMG’s ships are going to be a little bigger to better show some detail, I’d rather them start with the biggest, best ships in each category and use the smaller, less distinct-looking oob units for smaller ships than have FMG make larger mini’s of what should be smaller ships!

I think the same principle should go fo everything FMG makes: if the pieces will be slightly bigger (and we know they’ll be the best, most detailed plastic mini’s in this scale), he should do the biggest and best units in each category…) that means Tiger, Pershing & JS2 tanks, Iowa & Yamato BB’s, Essex & Taiho CV’s, etc.

I do think it’s a shame that the oob pieces are an odd mixture of early and late units, but their detail isn’t that great, so if FMG’s will be slightly bigger and clearly better, they should go for the top-end units in every category, and we can overlook the tiny details where the oob units aren’t consistently “early war” in their look, just was we overlook their odd mixture now!  Hopefullly, we can then get Coach to do a slightly smaller series of consistently early-war units (like he’s going to do for German tanks, etc.)  I’d rather have FMG do a consistent set; since his pieces will be te best, he should mould the best models in every category.

I want the T-34 for russia and the spitfire for UK. Those units were the icons for those countrys and I want to see them done right.FMG will do that it appears. I see your point of view IL. I am wishing they would have done the Mark 5 for Germany.Beggars can’t be choosers.

@Imperious:

The yamato is a terrible choice for Japanese BB. They only made two of these and the other 18 or so battleships looked like the Kongo or Nagato

It would be a tragic repeat of a mistake. The classic Japanese battleship is the Pagoda looking ships. The Kongo is the only choice. The OOB Yamato could be an advanced BB design.

In terms of japanese carriers I think most people would like the Kaga, Akagi, or something that looks like a typical japanese carrier.

Taiho is a terrible choice, it looks like every other carrier by UK or USA.

But I don’t agree that the Essex looks too much like the Wasp

In 1/3000 scale most ships like these are too similar from oob. Compare the OOB to any choice. Now since they look similar, the FMG should make a distinct carrier choice.

I think it would look nice to have different looking carriers ( both OOB and FMG) as American carriers for aesthetics. But if you made another OOB “looking piece” the wow factor suffers since these become just like copies of OOB with better detail and that is not the most bang for the buck.

Yes, but you’re overlooking the fact that the Yamato was the only NEW BB the Japanese built.  All the others were just attempts to spruce up their obsolete equipment; and no, it’s not 18, it’s only 10, and the Japanese were planning on building 4 of the Yamato’s until Midway forced them to rethink their priorities… no Japanese BB class had more than 4 in it.  This means that the Yamato’s would have been tied with the Kongo’s for largest class and would have made up over 80% of the total tonnage of the IJN BB fleet within a year of Midway, if Midway hadn’t been such a disaster.

Neither Kaga nor Akagi can be said to be typical in any way; like the Lexington’s, they were conversions of ships otherwise slated for scrapping due to the Washington Treaty… both were a one-off (not even the same class as each other, either!)  And neither was a particularly handsome ship… putting all this together makes both of them absolutely a TERRIBLE choice for FMG’s lone Japanese CV mold.  Yes, the Taiho was a unique ship, but it at least points to the Japanese ideal for what they would have built more of if they had the chance!  The only Japanese carrier that could be fairly said to be “typical” would be the Hiryu/Soryu/Unryu series, which weren’t identical, but were cousins if not sisters… and they were planning to build many more Unryu’s.  But these were smallish and unimpressive ships.  The Shokaku-Zuikaku twins would be much better choices if you insist on “typical.”  But with Japanese warships, “typical” is not easy to determine, since they have so few large classes of ships and NOT A ONE large class of large ships!

Now at least the Lexington has the advantage of being a handsome ship that would look great given the FMG treatment.  I still prefer the Essex, though.  Like I said, it’s the ship that won the war!  How much more pivotal could a ship be!  And with 24 of them made, we’re talking about a ship that was made in greater #'s than all the other carrier classes in the world combined up to that time!

The Pennsylvannia class would be a terrible choice for FMG, too!  I seem to remember you yourself, IL, once referring to the US Old BB’s as obscolete “death traps” unworthy to float on the same ocean as the Bismark, and though I thought at the time that your rhetoric was a bit extreme, there is a reason why none of the US Old BB’s were ever to fulfill their original mission of sea control.  Note that at Guadalcanal, when it was a close-run thing, it was 2 US new BB’s that were sent in to save the day (Washington, a North Carolina Class, and South Dakota, first of its class) and no US old BB’s were even sent into the theatre for the entire length of the campaign, when things were really on the line!  If FMG must do something not oob, he should do a new BB of some kind.  But why not an Iowa?  We could just call the oob ones a “South Dakota”, since it’s indistinct enough to fill the part, and will probably be almost exactly the right size in comparison to FMG’s Iowa.  Let Coach or TT do an “old BB” and then we’d have the best of both worlds!

But my bottom line is that FMG should just simply do the best in every category that was fielded in #'s.

The Japanese also built the Musashi which was commissioned in 1942. It was the second of the Yamato class.

@Fishmoto37:

The Japanese also built the Musashi which was commissioned in 1942. It was the second of the Yamato class.

OK, typo, it should read “…that the Yamato was the only NEW BB class the Japanese built…”

Anyway, that makes my point.  The only other BB’s even on the drawing board in Japan were essentially “super-Yamato’s” (the A-150 design) or “baby-Yamato’s” (the B65 design… and seeing as the Japanese planned for 4 of them and had the 3 halfway built before converting it into a carrier after Midway, the Yamato is as close as it gets to a “typical new” Japanese battleship, as otherwise atypical as it may have been by world-wide standards.  And I think FMG should concentrate on new stuff, not old stuff.  Let Coach do old stuff and we can use oob stuff to fill in for old stuff until then…

My picks, based on by “DO THE NEW!” principle are:

US:

Tank 1: M36 (Pershing as second choice)

Tank 2: SHERMAN (LATE WAR!)

Transport: Liberty Ship

SS: GATO CLASS

DD: SUMNER CLASS (Fletcher as second choice)

CA: BALTIMORE CLASS (Wichita as second choice, then Cleveland, then Brooklyn)

CV: ESSEX CLASS (Lexington as second choice)

BB: IOWA CLASS (South Dakota as second choice, then North Carolina)

Bomber: B-29 (B-24 as second choice)

Tac: TBM/TBF AVENGER

Truck:GMC 6x6

Air Trans: C-47 DAKOTA

Artillery: 155 MM LONG TOM

Infantry 1: STANDARD W/ M1

Infantry 2: AIRBORNE W/ M3 (folding-stock M1 carbine as second choice; Thompson was rather heavy/ unwieldy for airborne troops…)

Shokaku is what the OOB looks like, though it says its the Shinano. The japanese carrier choice. This choice should convey the classic look of a japanese carrier with a very small superstructure and the classic pylons under the flight deck in front and or back

You think the oob looks like a Shokaku?  Are you smoking something?  (Just kiding :-D)

Well, OK, I’ll concede that it is a little indistinct; I think the oob Yamato looks like a hybrid Kongo/Yamato, with its disproportionately pagoda-esque superstructure so maybe I should give the oob Shinano’s another look.  But in any case, to the extent that this is true, it actually makes my case that the oob pieces can fill in for more common early-war types, especially since, (AND THIS WILL BE KEY!) they will be a little bit smaller, since FMG has said he’s making his a little bigger to show more detail.  If you convince FMG to make a bunch of smaller/ early-war units that are all physically a little bigger than the oob pieces, it would look absolutely RIDICULOUS to then use the OOB pieces as “super” versions of bigger and nicer-looking “typical” pieces.  It makes far more sense to have FMG do all the “best and biggest”, and we’ll at least have one consistent-looking set that is consistent.  Then we can use oob for “typicals” as a stop-gap and Coach can do a consistent early-war set.  Then we’d have two consistent sets and one inconsistent oob set that we can gradually dispense with, instead of 2 inconsistent ones… which then would make it almost impossible for yet a third attempt to have even a chance at consistency!

FMG has already picked a set of mostly the “best and biggest” for Italy and Germany; it would be a big mistake for him to then give the allies nothing by obsolete “death traps” (in your own words).  Yes the axis had the jump on the allies in new equipment at war’s beginning, but why stick them with nothing but “garbage fire control” (in your own words) in their tanks and BB’s for the rest of the war.  The whole dynamic of both A&A and WW2 is that the allies have their responses coming, in production, technology, numbers, etc., but will they get there in time… that’s the whole drama.  Stick the US with obsolete stuff and you’re basically predetermining that the cavalry will never come… and then where’s the drama!  The outcome is over, the “evil empires” have won and they might as well start learning German and Japanese…

Look, your fundamental argument against the Yamato was that it was the other four Japanese BB classes that “did the dirty work…” yet you want to stick the US with a BB class that didn’t!  Check your facts on the old BB’s: they didn’t get within a thousand miles of Guadalcanal until the battle was long over, and even in the late war were used almost exclusively as floating fire-support for amphibious landings, never as decisive instruments of sea control, whereas Adm. Willis Lee’s 2 new BB’s ended up being the final straw that caused the IJN to give up on Guadalcanal when his last-ditch “ride to the rescue” resulted in the loss of the 2nd Kongo class BB in 2 days.  The only exception to the rule that the US old-BB’s were on the virtual sidelines was Surigao Strait, and that’s because the Japaneses managaged to break into what had essentially become a rear echelon area as a result of Halsey’s recklessness.

I utterly reject the notion that we should restrict the combatants to “early war” types, because it wasn’t necessarily the “early war” types that won the war or even that were used in the largest numbers.  (Again, 24 Essex class carriers!  Along with dozens of Baltimores and Clevelands and hundreds of Fletchers and Sumners…)  The Panther wasn’t used in numbers until 1943 and the two Tigers that FMG has already done are clearly late-war models!  If your argument is that FMG should do what was most numerous or typical over the overall course of the whole war, then you’d have to give the US all new ships classes, since the numbers of the new ship classes dwarfs anything they had in the beginning… or for that matter dwarfs what anybody else had in the end…

And no, the Pershing was NOT a joke.  The US Army Ordnance big-wigs probably made a big mistake in not giving it a higher priority, but why should FMG force players to repeat that mistake?  (Who are, after all, armchair generals exploring alternate history possibilities by the nature of the game…)  The Pershing had its pro’s and con’s, but against an army equipped with 6,000 Panthers the US easily could have and should have responded with at least 6,000 Pershings if they valued the lives of their tank crews, even if it meant a few less Shermans.

The ship choices are fine as long as they don’t look anything like the OOB units.  This is where the Pennsylvania comes in. All your choices look like a do over of OOB and OOB got it wrong.

Actually, aside from the BB category, none of my choices need look much like oob.  Sumner with its twin turrets has a very different sillouhette than the Fletcher.  All of the new-cruisers, like my recomendation of the Baltimore, with their flush decks, couldn’t look more different than oob old Portland.  With BB’s, all the new ones look much alike, but I’m against FMG doing any of the old ones for all the reasons already noted, plus FMG’s will very likely be distinctive from oob just on size and quality if nothing else.  My insistence on a late-war Sherman variant is, I think, a brilliant compromise, since if gives the opportunity for a radically different hull shape and the necessity of a radically different turret, so that it manages to be distinctive from oob without being “rare” in the least.  Considering that even in the “rarest” category, the new-BB’s, we’re dealing with a US fleet of new-BB’s at the end of the war that was exactly the same size as the Japanese old-BB fleet at the war’s beginning… well, I don’t think any of my suggestions are radical in the least!

I just don’t get your anti-late-war-equipment-for-the-allies bias.  Yes, the scenerios start in 1939 or 1940, but by the time the game has gone a few turns you’re no longer there, chronologically, and the fact that the allies need time to get their economies in gear and build up their forces is the whole point, the whole dynamic.  The US should be given FMG ship upgrades that are “1942-era” because that’s when the US fought the war (note that they didn’t get into it until the last month of 1941!) and because that is what they won the war with.

You mention the Me 262… not built in significant numbers; the Me109 and FW 190 were the main German fighters from A-Z and with their late-war engine upgrades stayed reasonably competitive.  Me 262 is perfect for a tech upgrade.  One could argue that the same is true of the Pershing; I concede the Pershing’s rarity, which is why I’ve relegated it to 3rd choice and put forward the M36 Jackson and late-war Sherman as compromises.  Note though, that it would have been easier technologically for the US to mass-produce Pershings than it was for the Germans to mass-produce Me 262’s… or for that matter Tiger II’s which the Germans churned out in fairly low #'s.

The US old-BB’s had long war-time careers all right… in secondary and rear-echelon missions.  The new BB’s, like Washington, North Carolina and South Dakota were all right in the thick of things as soon as they were finished, and all were taking front-line hits as early as Guadalcanal.  Check your Guadalcanal facts.  New BB’s operated with the main “Blue Water” battle-fleets meant to duke it out with the Japanese Combined Fleet ASAP (it alternated between being called 3rd/5th, depending on whether it was Halsey’s or Spruance’s turn to command) whereas the old-BB’s were grouped with the transports, CVE’s & DE’s of the 7th Fleet in what was supposed to be a supporting role in MacArthur’s “Brown Water Navy”… and that was in the “Late War” era, late 1944, actually.  For the entire first half of the war the former denizons of “Battleship Row” were either being rebuilt/ modernized or were cooling their heals in San Diego…

The new-BB’s were the US “front line” battleships, not the old-BB’s from the point of Pearl Harbor to the signing of the armistace (on the Missori, Halsey’s flag ship, no less!)  And there were 10 of them built (to only 10 Japanese old BB’s: double check your figures)  Oh, and the Yamato wasn’t a 1-off: it was to be the first of 4.  That it ended up being only the first of 2 was an accident of history that could have gone the other way.  If the Japanese hadn’t changed their building priorities after Midway, and had incurred the same losses as they did in Guadalcanal and elsewhere, there would have been more Yamato’s in their fleet than any other single BB class by the time of the Leyte Gulf conflict, and their 7 remaining old BB’s would have accounted for much less of their BB total tonnage than their four Yamato’s.

FMG should do a proper Yamato and we can use the oob Japanese BB’s as the old BB’s.  They look like pagoda-masts to me anyway.  Hopefully then, Coach will do some proper “Pagoda’s” for us and we’ll have the best of both worlds!

M35 (Pershing as second choice)  both late war M36 saw action in Sept 1944. How nice to have these in global 1940,4 years early.

Yes, because the US tanks ENTERED the war late.  And so would tanks likely in A&A, since it will take time for the US to build them!  THIS IS MY POINT!

Pershing was like the last month of the war. ridiculous

Yes, but this easily could have been different if the US had chosen different building priorities! THIS IS MY POINT!  In any case, I’ve conceded that the Pershing would be a good choice as a tech unit for a “heavy tanks” tech that Germany could be given free as a “National Advantage” but which the others would have to research according to their priorities…

Transport: Liberty Ship

SS: GATO CLASS

DD: SUMNER CLASS (Fletcher as second choice)

CA: BALTIMORE CLASS (Wichita as second choice, then Cleveland, then Brooklyn)

You critique my choices as oob when yours are too!  …and Baltimore is not, I repeat NOT, oob, and doesn’t even look much like the oob Portland.  Neither is the Sumner oob, and my Sumner has a gun arrangement more different from oob than your Gearing.

Essex saw action in late 1943…again late war.

Yes, the Essex entered late in the war… because the US was practically out of carriers between Guadalcanal and the entry of the Essexes and had to reorganize their battle fleet around them in order to wage the second half of the war!  Again, as I said earlier, the early war US and Japanese fleets had nearly annihilated each other by 1943 and the US then went on to win the war largely with the new ships it had built… much as is likely to happen in any scenerio of A&A where the US wins!  In A&A, the drama comes from the Axis trying to win the war before the allies can get in gear and build up, and the allies try to hold them up until they can get their new stuff into the field.  I want FMG to offer us some of that exciting new stuff, not the obsolete old stuff that was barely adequate.  His excellent pieces should be of excellent ships, planes and tanks, not of mediocre ones!

Do the new, FMG!  DO THE NEW!

Bomber: B-29 (B-24 as second choice)–this is late war

Yes, the B-29 was also late-war, but it was THE BOMBER that bombed the heck out of Japan… because it was the only plane that could!  That’s why they were nearly all sent to the Pacific rather than to Europe: it was the only bomber with the necessary range to hit Japan from the Marianas.  And please note that it looks pretty different from the oob B-17!

I do concede that it might also be a good “heavy bombers” or “long-range bombers” tech piece… which is why I offer the B-24 as a 2nd choice.  But I do hope SOMEONE does it!