• Sponsor '17 '13 '11 '10

    I do not want to have a thread with 7000 replies back and forth, but everything is moving forward.

  • '10

    @coachofmany:

    4 months

    We have discussed this in depth, HBG and FMG will work together. HBG is going to fill all the wants and gaps that we could not do.

    4 months?  If you can do that I would be shocked.


  • Good points on the German and Romanian/Dutch helmets.The Romanian SP(Marseal?) was an inspiration for the Marder,if thats the SP built on the Pz 38 chasis.I know I’m
    sounding like a broken record on this one,but the Hungarian Toldi tank,Nimrod SP/AA,and
    75 mm(Bofors) were all license built Swedish designs.
    I would stock up on just about anything for the minor Euro  powers and sell my metal stuff that I presently have for them to pay for it!


  • Sounds Awsome.  Looking forward to seeing the outcome.


  • After buying so much of my micro armor from the metal shops in Britain,it’s great to see
    these projects happening here.I’ve been itching to get an order to the new H+R for some
    armor/aircraft,but I’ve got to see how the plastic projects pan out.Last year I bought
    armor from Rolco,men of war from Viktory II,modern jets from Oriental Trading…all plastic.I’ll be saving a bundle just in shipping.Plus the price of metal!
    I too must admit to haunting this site lately.

  • '12

    looking forward for your product


  • After another week’s (admittedly intermittent) research and after pouring through the newly arrived book I ordered on the subject, here are my latest thoughts on the “perfect” axis minors set:

    1. The field hat actually is not a bad idea.  Most of the pictures I was finding of Hungarian and Romanian soldiers in soft hats weren’t showing visors though… and then I realized that many of them actually had folding visors!  At the same time, similar hats with fixed visors and without visors (like the classic “overseas cap”) also seem to have been worn and I haven’t been able to get a good idea of what the real ratio of the three types really was, particularly as it’s often difficult to tell which is which when you’re looking at a grainy picture!  Nevertheless, it is undoubtedly true that the famous German visored field cap actually had its origins in the Austro-Hungarian WW1-era field cap, which inspired the German Mountain Troops field hat, which, in turn, was modified and adapted into the famous general-issue and DAK visored caps…

    2. I still think a Stahlhelm infantry would also be a good idea.  I’m still seeing an overwhelmingly helmeted infantry in the pictures I’m finding of battle-bound Hungarians and Finns, and these guys all wear the Stahlhelm.  With the widespread us of the design by Spanish, the Chinese and the Bulgarians, having multi-colored Stahlhelm-wearers makes sense.  I don’t know, maybe there’s a separate accessory set in there instead… “Ladies and gentlemen, the latest from HBG Industries, a rainbow array of soldiers in Fritz-helmets & Kraut-caps!”  :lol:

    3. In the realm of tanks, I’m seeing the German tank exports to their allies split pretty evenly between Panzer III’s and Panzer IV’s; as far as other AFV exports, I think we got it right with the StuGIII’s; when the Germans sent their allies tracked AFV’s, this III/IV series seems to be the design generation they went with and it makes sense: they were enough better than what the allies were used to to be an improvement for pretty much any of their allies, so why part with the “good stuff,” the Panthers and Jagdpanthers and beyond…

    4. Yeah they had some heavy artillery here and there, but it wasn’t necessarily German stuff anyway: it was more likely to be obsolete (and horse-drawn) WW1-era stuff if and when they had it.

    5. In the SP realm, StuGIII’s excepted, it looks like pretty much anything they had was jury-rigged one-offs.  The hummel might work as a reasonable facsimile to these sorts of things, but might be a better fit in that “supplemental German vehicle” set you were talking about, I don’t know.

    Bottom line: for the best true-to-the-axis-minors accuracy, you might consider ditching the heavy artillery and SP artillery and add in a helmeted infantry and an early Panzer IV, but I think you’re generally on the right track

  • Sponsor '17 '13 '11 '10

    Yes, I am ditching both the Hummel and heavy artillery and adding them to a supplement set.
    As of now I am going with a field hat with rifle and n36 helmet with pazerfaust.


  • Here’s the actual numbers of German vehicles sold to the Axis minors in toto (as best as I can find them), in order from most to least numerous:

    1. Panzer IV: 387
    2. StuG III: 252
    3. Panzer 35/38: 214
    4. Hetzer: 75
    5. Panzer III: 31
    6. SdKfz 222/223: 20
    7. Panzer I: 8
    8. Panther: 5
    9. Tiger I: 3

    The one pause this gives me is that there are alot fewer Panzer III’s than I had expected; I think that when I was just scanning over the lists, rather than taking the time to actually add them all up, I was seeing all the Panzer IV’s and StuGIII’s and mentally filling in more Panzer III’s than I should have.  Of course, these raw #'s don’t tell us which versions were being used.  And Panzer III’s were being used by 3/4 of the countries in question.  Still, the overall picture makes me think that maybe the Panzer IV is an even higher priority than the Panzer III, here.  (Though I know the Panzer III might be a more popular choice.)  Of course, if you do both and do them in German colors, you haven’t really lost anything, because the German-colored versions of the set could then also serve as a “supplement for the German supplement set”, and you wouldn’t have to do any of them in both…  But if I could find out for sure which Panzer IV version was more used by the minors, you could also do a different Panzer IV in both sets, one early short-barrel and one late long-barrel.  I suspect that the minors might have used the earlier version more, but I don’t know for sure.

    Have you decided on the  line-up for the German supplement set yet?


  • Ah, one thing that helps explain the prevalence of Panzer IV’s and the (relatively) low #'s of Panzer III’s is that the number of German vehicles purchased by the Axis minors rose sharply in the late war period, as these countries began to realize the their pre-war purchased and/or own designs couldn’t compete on the Eastern Front.  (Not to mention that the Hungarians and Romanians, whose divisions had been decimated at Stalingrad, probably had very few of these earlier vehicles left anyway…)  During this late-war period, the Germans also phased out the Panzer III altogether as a conventional tank, but continued to produce both StuG III’s and Panzer IV’s throughout the war.  This makes me think that my assumption about the minors using more early than late model Panzer IV’s may also be incorrect, but I don’t have the #'s to be sure.

  • Sponsor '17 '13 '11 '10

    I appreciate the time to look up these items.
    I have also been looking.
    Maybe I should supply Pz III and early war PzIV with minors, of course they are so similar.

    Look at this Dr !

    http://orbat.com/site/sturmvogel/romafv.html#Heading31


  • Yes, that looks like good information, there.  It seems to indicate that the late-war Panzer IV purchase were late-war models.  This seems to also be the case with the Hungarian 1944 purchase of 100 Panzer IV’s, though I’m not 100% about that because it seems the Germans often forced their allies to pay top dollar for new tanks and then sent them well-worn used tanks instead!  (No “Nazi Lend-Lease” program, that’s for sure!)

    Anyway, it makes me think that late-war Panzer IV’s might be a better choice and give more differentiation from Panzer III’s…

    On the other hand, the #'s we’re dealing with are small in all these cases: the Hungarians built more of their own designs (the Toldi & Turan series) and the Finns operated more captured Soviet tanks than either got from Germany!

  • Customizer

    PLEASE make the Panzer III.  I really would like to see that tank.  I was so looking forward to it from FMG then they came out with 2 heavy tanks.

    An idea for a Hungarian tank, the Turan I.  I think it would be more of a light tank, along the lines of the 38(t), but a pretty cool looking design.


  • So would you rather see a Panzer III or a Turan I, k?

    I think his idea, though, is to stick with units that could equally double as German units, so that it could serve both as an axis minor set and a supplemental German set… and he’s thinking about doing both a Panzer III AND a Panzer IV (though which version of each is still an open question…)

    Did I summarize this correctly, Coach?

  • Sponsor '17 '13 '11 '10

    Yes, that is why I chose the 38t as the light tank, both German and minors used them. As the medium tank, I will do the PzIII, I will add a pz IVH , the one with the side skirts as a supplement set later on. It gets too expensive to try to give all the minors their own tank sculpts , instead find one that will work for them all.
    I can add a pzIV with the PzIII, but it is still a medium tank.

    I would add the PzIV with side skirts to depict a later war medium tank.


  • In any case, the Turan was a descendant of the Panzer 35/38 series anyway: the Hungarians got the Germans (with some effort, surprisingly enough, since the Germans had already turned the design down) to let them license-produce a Czech prototype based on the Panzer 38 called the T22 (if I’m remembering the whole twisted tale correctly…)  In terms of its actual capability, the Turan was more in the Panzer 38 class of “medium-light” tanks rather than the Panzer III class of “medium” tanks, as I understand it… so the Panzer 38 is a good choice as a fill-in.

    I don’t know about the Panzer IV side-skirt issue one way or the other.  I’ll look around and see what I can find next time I need to take a break from the Late Bronze Age…


  • Yep, according to that link you referenced above, the evidence seems to be that the bulk of the shipments to Romania were Ausf H’s, which means both longer barrel and side skirts.  I’d say do your StuGIII’s with side skirts too, then, since the largest orders of StuG’s come from around the same time (late war) and the StuGIII and PzIV would then have a  natural “fit” with each other.  You could then put the short-barreled early-war Panzer IV in the German supplemental set later.  Demand for the Panzer III seems strangely high to me, but why argue with it?  Throw one in this set and you’d give it another selling point for those disappointed by FMG’s last-minute decision to switch to bigger & badder tanks.

  • Customizer

    Hey Coach, thank you on the Panzer III.  Really looking forward to it.

    Dr Larsen, did the StuG III have side skirt armor like the later Panzer IVs?  I don’t remember seeing one with armor like that.

  • Sponsor '17 '13 '11 '10


  • First of all let me register my excitement and support of this project, new pieces are more than welcome!  Second, my I suggest a tech/advanced/late war unit set?  I think this would sell very well, I know I would buy it. Thirdly, what is the estimated time frame for this product?  I only ask because I think the FMG project is going on year 2 now if I am correct, and it’s been something of a tease to say the least.

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