FMG figter bombers

good question

@Lunarwolf:

I have a question for FMG. if you guys use fighter bomber models for tac bombers, will they be the same scale as regular fighters?

FMG indicated that their tactical bombers will fit on a carrier, but are slightly larger than the fighters.  Most heavy fighters/tac bombers were slightly larger than their fighter counterparts, so yes, they will probably be modeled at the same scale, or at least, relatively close to same scale.  but not the same size.

@Lunarwolf:

i hope there pretty much the same size cause it always bothered me that eh US and Japanese tac bombers were so big

There’s only so much of a place that realism has in the game, and some sacrifices need to be made for clarity and playability.  Considering that some people thought that the Dauntless was a Corsair, making the planes truly the same scale seems like a bad plan to me.  I already had enough trouble trying to show people I played with the difference between the british destroyer and cruiser.  If the Dauntless were the same scale as a Hellcat from AA50, they’d be indistinguishable to the casual gamer.  I’d be fine if the FMG tacs were slightly smaller than currently modeled, but I hope they’re a bit larger than the OOB fighters so there is always a definate heirarchy.

To make them look different, the fighters should have flat bottoms, and the Tac’s should stand on wheels like the Japanese Tac and the german stuka.

Like in this pic, the fighters at left have flat bottoms, and the Stuka at right stand on wheels.
If using wheels to make a difference, the planes can have the same size, and still be easy to identify.

@Razor:

To make them look different, the fighters should have flat bottoms, and the Tac’s should stand on wheels like the Japanese Tac and the german stuka.

thats a good idea, did FMG do that with Italy?

@Razor:

To make them look different, the fighters should have flat bottoms, and the Tac’s should stand on wheels like the Japanese Tac and the german stuka.

Like in this pic, the fighters at left have flat bottoms, and the Stuka at right stand on wheels.
If using wheels to make a difference, the planes can have the same size, and still be easy to identify.

The Stuka and the Val have external gear.  The Dauntless and Mosquito have internal gear.  Fmg’s Italian Tac Bomber has internal gear.

The US had very few useful tactical bombers (passed the beginning of the war) that had external gear.  Britain had several, including the Beaufighter.  In general, external landing gear was a liability and was phased out.  I’m fairly certain that most, if not all, late war dive bombers for every nation had internal gear, and the Stuka and Val are iconic and recognizable partially due to their pre war designs with external gear.

The only reason the Japanese tac bomber has external gear in the Pac40 mold is because the Val did not have landing gear that could retract into the fuselage.  It is certainly possible to mold the Tacs so that they all have extended gear, but thus far the planes have been molded to look as they did in flight, not on the ground.  Including the FMG italian Tac.