@moralecheck:
I also really don’t get why they chose the priest for the UK. It is still an American vehicle, so it is no more British then halftrack was, and does not really look the part.
The ANZAC sculpts are odd choices too, in the sense that most of the equipment pieces are neither of Australian or New Zealand origin – though this was probably done of necessity, since to my knowledge neither country produced domestic equipment in many of these categories. Based on a quick check, here’s where the ANZAC equipment appears to come from:
Artillery: BL 5.5 inch
A British medium gun.
Antiaircraft Artillery: L/70 40mm
The Bofors 40mm anti-aircraft cannon. Manufactured in Sweden, but used by many Allied countries.
Mechanized Infantry: Ram-Kangaroo
The Kangaroo was a Canadian conversion of a tank chassis into an armoured personnel carrier. Later used by the British. The Ram Kangaroo was a variant.
Tank: AC1 Sentinel
This one actually is Australian. It was a Cruiser-type tank.
Fighter: CA-12
This one is Australian too: the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation’s Boomerang fighter, produced under several numbers including the CA-12.
Tactical Bomber: TB.Mk.1
I can’t pin down this one at all. The only “TB Mk I” which I could find is a variant of the Handley Page HP.52 Hampden, and it doesn’t look like the sculpt picture which VanGal supplied a few weeks ago; notably, the tail of the sculpt has no vertical stabilizers. Does anyone know what aircraft this sculpt is supposed to represent?
Strategic Bomber: PV-1
The PV-1 was a version of the Lockheed Ventura. It served with many air forces, but was American in manufacture. It’s a bizarre choice as a strategic bomber because it was neither a heavy nor a medium bomber; it was conceived as a light bomber (a role in which it performed poorly), and was later used much more successfully as a maritime patrol/bombing aircraft.
Battleship: Warspite
Warspite was a British WWI-vintage Queen Elizabeth-class battleship, modernized in the interwar period. She saw lots of service in WWII, but all of it was with the Royal Navy. The closest she appears to have ever come to Australia was during her year of service with the RN’s Eastern Fleet, when she operated out of Ceylon.
Aircraft Carrier: Majestic
The Majestic class comprised the last six units of the British sixteen-ship Colossus class of light fleet carriers, built to a modified design. None was completed during the war. Five were completed post-war, with two of them being sold to Australia (who operated them under different names); one of these was Majestic, redesignated Melbourne.
Cruiser: Same as UK (same as first edition)
A British Kent-class heavy cruiser.
Destroyer: Tribal
The large Tribal-class destroyers were built by Britain, mostly for the Royal Navy, but a few were built for the Royal Canadian Navy and for the Royal Australian Navy.
Submarine: S
These were British submarines, and they seem to have been used exclusively by the Royal Navy.
Naval Transport: Monowai
If this sculpt is intended to represent HMNZS Monowai, it has the advantage of being an actual Royal New Zealand Navy ship but the disadvantage of being an armed merchant cruiser rather than a transport vessel. (The rulebooks started referring to the German transport ship as a Hilfskreuzer – auxiliary cruiser – a few games ago, which is the same kind of mistake.) Monowai did later operate as a troop transport, but as a Royal Navy ship (HMS Monowai) rather than a Royal New Zealand Navy ship.
If someone can definitively identify the tactical bomber sculpt, I’d be very interested in finding out what it is.
