plastic WW2 anyone ?

by **southrifle** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 3:06 pm

seeing as plastic ranges are new in town, are WL going to follow with an plastic army?, finger crossed. would help my finance.

by **goose** » Sat Oct 10, 2009 6:13 am

I personally hope not.. I far prefere white metal figures my self.

I would rather the time/investment/money etc go into finishing and filling out the present white metal lines.

Also for the platoon sized games I play using RoE there are no need for massed ranks or the numbers like the earlier musket era games where large plastic boxes are a real boon. Thats my 2p's worth onit..

by **Aradyon** » Sat Oct 10, 2009 6:37 am

I think you miss a major advantage of well made plastic ranges.

For lets say your twelve riflemen, is it not better not to have each group of three of them looking the same.

Also, instead of having all of these little packets of differently equipped troops, usually with a couple of miniatures who are not in your platoon, who also cannot be converted. Why not instead have a box of heavily multi-part troops from which you could really build up a squad, and have a lot of options. This allows for more conversion, more individuality, and is far more cost efficient. I don't see anything bad here. It is also easier to paint, and is harder to chip. Weapons are harder to bend. The list of advantages goes on and on.

by **Pat-Antwerp** » Sat Oct 10, 2009 7:40 am

I agree,

look at valiant miniatures,

they already do it for 1:72 scale and it works verry well!

Verry nice plastic soldiers too.

28mm plastics WWII…in kitts mentioned as above…i said it before somewhere in this forum…worldwide succes i think!

Cheers

Pat

by **Parus Ater** » Sat Oct 10, 2009 8:58 am

I'm going to change angle on this; I think everyone here will be aware and familiar with the airfix 1:32 multipose. Now, in that set there's about four massive sprues of dozens upon dozens of parts. This is so all of the men in the squad that it makes up can be equiped with a single option - be it with garands, thompsons,BARs etc. Now, with these weapon options the web equipment varies a fair bit so you need part options for all of them, you need varying field equipment for all of them. And with all these sprues and parts how many men does it produce? Six.

You give a trooper a BAR and he needs the specific belt fot it, it's bigger and bulkier than the garand belt and the straps from the haversack have to attach to the top - at 28mm they will show, the thompson and carbine both use the pistol belt which had three rows of gromit holes it in which will also show in 28mm, the garand will need a bayonet - the only weapon to have one (which, btw, you'll never see in a certain company's 15mm....) which is essential. After that you have the problem that everything has to fit flush with all poses of the figures. you've also got to have a good fit on all weapon web set ups with the canteen, knife, bandage pouch, shovel so they sit realistically and have good adhesive contact.

Personally, I see a better looking range being white metal, one or two piece with preset weapon and equipment set ups with a wide range of poses for the basic rifleman, multiple poses for all the other weapon set ups. It might even be good to have separate heas on those poses as well as variant poses to the same basic sculpt.

by **vikingwarrior** » Sat Oct 10, 2009 5:04 pm

Again with the Plastics!

it is inevitable that some one will do the right thing and bring out a beautiful set of plastics. agreed that you will have to sacrifice some historical accurasies (but gaming minis have to be a bit more robust than your Tamia diorama type models, so you dont snap bits off whils playing)

you cant all be so fussy, Eg: as to play a game set in june 1944 and complain that a figure is "whereing a set of bicycle clips which wernt on issue till after july the 7th 1944"

if we all did that an army we game with for OP overlord would be inacrrate for OP Market garden.

and i for one relish the i dear of collecting a whole coy group of plastic WW2 FiGs, then converting another whole Coy group for Weird WW2 Games and then probably again with a whole theamed converted Imperial Guard army!

ok so my misses may go mad, my house will run out of space and it gives me an excuse to colect and paint loads of Tanks. and spend the last vestiges of my sanity painting and Upsetting GW.

but thats just me.

by **Aradyon** » Sat Oct 10, 2009 5:28 pm

Well, Paris Afar, that is the exact reason why it hasn't been done.

However, these things are solvable. It is harder to make good plastic kits, I agree, but i is not impossible, and well done to whoever manages it first.

A box of plastics doesn't have to have every different camouflage set from different stages. You can make say three boxes per faction, to cover a variety of different theaters, time spots, and forces. As to belts, if the correct chest webbing is done, then there are simple enough solutions to the belt problem. Look at the Perry Brits, and you will see that on the command, where you have the options for coat tails, or not (in our case, M1 Grand belt, and Thomson Sub belt) and you have the back, or sections cut away, so that it will fit on.

There are solutions, but it would take a lot of work, and be very difficult.

The thing is, if someone managed it, the would become very, very rich, and a lot of peole would become very, very happy.

Its not that you can't achieve the realism, its that it just presents some challenges.

Also, if the figs, are in action poses, then there is no reason why, an arm or a belt feed that one happens to be holding obscures a particularly strange three holes in the belt, instead of four, or something of that nature.

It is also justifiable to have some troops wearing earlier war equipment for the later war stages, though obviously the other way round doesn't work. Some soldiers like their equipment, and just because gear was no longer commissioned, didn't mean nasty quarter masters handed out the old stuff first. So we have a little leeway on the issue.

by **Parus Ater** » Sat Oct 10, 2009 5:43 pm

The coat tail situation is very different though. Let's imagine one basic plastic fig, intended for use as any weapon type. In order to do this, the doll would need to have on it a belt molded so the rear end of it sits so it could appear to be either the mid section of an extendable BAR belt or the Garand belt and also the full pistol belt. this would mean that the gromits would likely not be sculpted and the belt would sit somewhere on the waist that could be any. This would also mean that tere would have to be a 'one size fits all' suspender type sculpt that could pass as M-1937 suspenders or the straps from a M-1928 doughboy pack. these traps are not only quite different, the positioning of where the hooks attach varies on all three belts. Basically, the danger in making the bwebbing system look like all of them would result in the looking like none of them, which was the porblem with the Taimay 1:48's and the Airfix !:32's

i've thought about it a lot truth be told and I think if the move is away from metals then the move would have to be towards resin cast miniatures.

by **vikingwarrior** » Sat Oct 10, 2009 5:51 pm

A lot of german troops held on to older uniform as a symbol of seniority!, and becuse some times the quality was better. this made units look strikingly jumbled with diferent types of field grey and rank and insignia.

i know that it didnt work with Yanks as when they returned to the front they would be striped and issued compleate new kit. Again veterans would stand out against replacements and returning soldiers from field hospitals or R and R.

fasions dont change, even now young soldiers will go out and buy old kit which they were never issued such as 58 pattern web belts, old yellow tropical trousers and shirts. and old soldiers will reluctently exchange that worn out beret or shirt. Old worn kit gives the impresion that the soldier is a "old sweat" or veteran.

even my last tour of afghanistan i wasnt issued a new clothing pack and had to deploy in worn out and thread bare kit from my previous tour of Iraq, where all the young soldiers had shiny new kit.

sorry for ranting on..

by **Parus Ater** » Sat Oct 10, 2009 6:22 pm

No worries, mate.

the thing about the US in WWII is that they were issued older items until exhaustion so many unit's never saw the M43 jacket because supply for their battalion or sector could supply M41 jackets for everyone either unissued or from the laundry system - even the M43 trousers were kept back from issue ahead of hbt and wool. Items that were manufactured in 1943 never saw light, even in 1945 despite having supply in Europe due to the fact that they still had cratefuls of the older standard to give out first. even the famous US airborne jumpboot was given out ahead of the far more suitable M43 buckle boot - which as you say were begged borrowed and most likely stolen by D-Day veterans when theirs wereruined or lost all the way to the very end of the war for their status.

When the US troops ran up the beach on D-day, half their kit was already out of date and had new spec waiting in stock for them to wear out what they had on. This is why the US can be fairly strictly defined in time in the ETO from their equipment and unifrom, basically web didn't change at all but their jackets did - most of them - as all the older stuff was dished out first.

Imagine it's the start of winter you're in the que for a new green field jacket with four big strong pockets with the ability be used with a pile liner and hood. When you get to the front of the line you get offered a thin day-glow khaki jacket with two small hand pockets - the same as the one you wore in the height of summer. Do you take it?

As a quartermaster, you get rid of the old stuff otherwise once the troops have seen the new standard you'll never be able to get rid of it

Who is online