• …Oh, and what do you guys think about the lower range?


  • Gee, I don’t know, guys… I’m looking at all of the tanks side-by-side here, and the TWG tank isn’t really that much bigger… and the WotC Panther is SO close in size to the other WotC mediums…

    What would you guys say to the TT Tiger being halfway between the TWG Tiger and the WotC Panther in size?

    If that works, then a Pershing and an IS-2 could be the same size, the Panther could be the same size as the WotC model and the Comet could mirror it and players could choose themselves whether to class these two as mediums, as heavies, or maybe even as 3/3/2/7 medium-heavies…

    …And IDK about the KV-2.  Way Too tall and ungainly, little-used… It’s really more an SP gun than a tank anyway.  I still like the IS-2, which is also very distinctive, with that massive gun and fairly high profile for a Russian tank (NOT to be confused with the much lower-profile IS-3 that came too late in the war…)


  • Remember we have a good deal of wiggle room in the actual sizes. I have to dig up my post, but a small French light tank would be visibly smaller than a medium or heavy tank.

    Here is my post - notice the progression in sizes. Trust me, the difference would be easily visible to the eye. Plus, we are not going to confuse a Tiger with a Panzer II

    –--------------------------------------------

    Did some measuring of current Axis & Allies tank sizes. No matter the real-world relationship between tank size, the current convention is to stick to a given range, and depending on a tank’s relative size put it either at the top of the range (Panther) or bottom of the range (Type 95), etc.

    Here are the measurements: (Length is point to point on longest part of tank / Width is track width)

    UK Matilda
    20mm L / 9mm W

    US Sherman
    22mm L / 8mm W

    GER Panther
    22mm L / 9.5mm W

    RUS T-34
    21.5mm L / 9.5mm W

    JAP T95
    19.5mm L / 8.5mm W

    ITA M41
    20mm L / 9.5mm W

    Obviously the Panther is the largest (and widest) tank, and the T-95 is the smallest. Here are my proposed measurements for the French lineup:

    Hotchkiss H35
    17mm L / 7.5mm W

    SOMUA S35
    19.5mm / 8.5mm W

    Char B1-bis
    21.5mm L / 9.5mm W


  • I agree with Reloader: the A&A convention is for all tanks to be approximately the same size, within a fairly narrow range.  The more a non-A&A tank strays outside that range, the more out of place it will look alongside the A&A units.  The primary way in which A&A tank models are differentiated is by shape, not by size (with the colour being an additional factors that helps tell units apart).

    I think part of the problem we’re noticing here is that board members have different views as to what constitutes a noticeable and/or acceptable size differential between units.  For instance, when I look at my A&A and TWG tanks side by side, I find the size difference to be much more striking than Dr Larsen does – strking to the point of rendering the two types incompatible.  In fact there are very few TWG units that I find to be fully compatible with the A&A pieces, the destroyer being one of the rare exceptions.

    The approach I’d like to see TT use would be to stick as much as possible to the size range of the existing A&A pieces, and to use shape rather than size as the distinguishing factor between models.


  • I understand completely what you’re trying to say about the WotC convention being what it is.

    Here’s where I have a concern about it in terms of practicality…

    So far, WotC tanks have all been within the same category.  It thus didn’t matter if you mixed in, say, the skinny version of the Panther with the wider version or the British Matilda with the British Sherman… A tank was a tank was a tank.

    Of course, different countries=different colors, too.

    But once we have different types or levels of tank that are the same color, will it be so easy?

    Having already experienced the difficulties of using just shape because I’d long been using the (smaller, pre AA40) Stukas as Tac Bombers and bf109’s as fighters, I’m concerned that more differentiation might be helpful once we have multiple tank types, just as WotC radically increased the size of the Stukas once the addition of Tac Bombers became “official.”

    Do y’all think the current Stuka/ bf109 difference is too great as well?

    (I hope you don’t think I’m being argumentative, I’m just trying to struggle with the dialectic between compatibility/ recognizability thoroughly in the hope that we can find a consensus, so that TT and possibly other future accessory venders will have the clearest possible feedback.)


  • Oh, quick Q’s RL:

    1. Are you counting the barrel overhang in your length measurement?

    2. These are all from the latest AA40 sculpts, right?


  • Wait a minute, they can’t be all AA40 sculpts, since they stopped doing the unique Italian tank in AA40…

    So are these all AA50 sculpts, or a mix?


  • Barrel overhang is not measured.

    The pieces are all AA40, with the exception of the Italian tank, which is AA50.


  • @DrLarsen:

    I understand completely what you’re trying to say about the WotC convention being what it is.

    Here’s where I have a concern about it in terms of practicality…

    So far, WotC tanks have all been within the same category.  It thus didn’t matter if you mixed in, say, the skinny version of the Panther with the wider version or the British Matilda with the British Sherman… A tank was a tank was a tank.

    Of course, different countries=different colors, too.

    But once we have different types or levels of tank that are the same color, will it be so easy?

    Having already experienced the difficulties of using just shape because I’d long been using the (smaller, pre AA40) Stukas as Tac Bombers and bf109’s as fighters, I’m concerned that more differentiation might be helpful once we have multiple tank types, just as WotC radically increased the size of the Stukas once the addition of Tac Bombers became “official.”

    Do y’all think the current Stuka/ bf109 difference is too great as well?

    (I hope you don’t think I’m being argumentative, I’m just trying to struggle with the dialectic between compatibility/ recognizability thoroughly in the hope that we can find a consensus, so that TT and possibly other future accessory venders will have the clearest possible feedback.)

    The Japanese Type 95 was a light tank, not a medium tank like the other A&A tank units.  The A&A sculpt for the Type 95 is the shortest one on Reloader’s list (19.5mm long), so it’s at the correct end of the size scale.

    The Stuka size increase illustrates the principle that major size differences in A&A sculpts are used to differentiate types of units, not models within a single type.  The original A&A Europe game incorrectly used the Stuka in the role of a fighter, even though the aircraft was actually a dive bomber.  The Stuka sculpt was, however, in the correct size range of the other fighter units in the original Europe and Pacific games.  The later introduction of the Me109 fighter (in Bulge, I think) fixed the problem of having a true fighter in the fighter role.  When Pacific 1940 came out, the new Tac Bomber type was introduced and its type size was pegged at midway between the bomber types and the fighter types.  Europe 1940 applied this convention to the revised Stuka (now being properly used as a dive bomber) and bumped it up into the Tac Fighter type size range, with the Me109 sculpt continuing to occupy the fighter role (and type size).

    I agree that recognizability between units is an important consideration, but one way of looking at the issue is to consider the relationship between the size/shape of a unit and function.  Large variations in size and shape can be seen to correspond to large variations in function.  To pick some deliberately extreme examples: aircraft sculpts look radically different from ship sculpts, carriers look radically different from submarines, and half-tracks look radically different from tanks.  When we narrow the focus to units of broadly similar types, the differences in appearance start to become smaller, but we can still get a fair degree of differentiation: for example we have big strategic bombers, medium tac bombers and small fighters (aircraft with fundamentally different missions).

    Things would start to get tricky, however, if we lobbied TT to introduce too large a range of models that are fundamentally of the same type.  I’d love to see each nation get its own distinct type of medium tank, and I can see the point of each nation also having one light tank (at or just below the low end of the A&A tank size range) and one heavy tank (at or just above the upper end of the A&A tank size range), but that’s probably as much variety as could be introduced in a practical way.  Giving every single country multiple types of medium tanks, for example, would be redundant.  Distinguishing their appearance would be as difficult as distinguishing their performance.  Even though I’m an avowed piece junkie, I don’t see much practical point in a single country having multiple models of units whose missions and performances are virtually identical.  A&A combat rules don’t much take into account the real-world performance differences between a Nation X tank and a Nation Y tank, so the rules would not be well geared towards taking into account the performance differences between multiple models of tanks fielded by Nation X.  So a situation in which we were having trouble differentiating on the board between various sculpts might not be telling us that the sizes weren’t chosen properly; it might instead be telling us that we have too great a variety of unit models of the same basic type serving the same basic role.


  • I’d love to see each nation get its own distinct type of medium tank, and I can see the point of each nation also having one light tank (at or just below the low end of the A&A tank size range) and one heavy tank (at or just above the upper end of the A&A tank size range), but that’s probably as much variety as could be introduced in a practical way.  Giving every single country multiple types of medium tanks, for example, would be redundant.

    Well, that’s why I created the previous table with substantial performance characteristics for light, medium, and heavy tanks… and why I then created the table to fit the key models into these three categories.  (Admittedly, I also showed how some were sort of “tweeners” in the continuum, but that was to facilitate informed discussion on which would best fit which of the three categories, as well as the more-or-less parallel TD and SP categories…)

    After coming up with the former table which included substantial performace characteristics between those three broad categories, it started to occur to me that these performance differences were at least as big, if not bigger, than that of the fighter/tac-bomber units.

    This then led me to think that perhaps the size difference between units of these three categories should be analogous to the size difference between tac bombers and fighters, rather than the size differences within the different tank units.

    Thus, I took a second look at all the piece sizes (WotC, TWG, TT & World’s Forge), and the TWG-tank/ WotC-tank difference suddenly didn’t seem as out-of-whack anymore…


  • DrLarsen - EXCELLENT!

    You have adhered to a formula that I really like - Attack+Defense+Move(-1)=Cost

    The -1 is because 1 Move is standard for all pieces, and you should be paying a premium for an extra move space.

    Hey reloader:

    Do you suggest the same formula for air and sea units?  Obviously, if you plug these formulas into standard A&A prices (of any edition) it becomes quickly clear that you pay a hefty premium for air and sea units.  Do you suggest such a premium be maintained and if so, do you have you’re own formula for arriving at air/sea unit prices?


  • GER Panther
    22mm L / 9.5mm W

    RUS T-34
    21.5mm L / 9.5mm W

    How did you do these measurements, RL?  I’m looking at my AA40 Panther and it has to be wider than my other AA40 pieces by at least 20%?


  • I’ll double check those when I get home from work. I used track width, not tank width.


  • “Much ado about nothing!”

    You can quote me  :-D


  • @DrLarsen:

    Hey, TT!

    Do you have a copy of that new game “Singapore: 1942”

    I checked and it looks like the price has been reduced to $85.  I just picked up a copy of the new Europe game with the Frence for $50.


  • Checked, and the measurements are correct - the Panther and the T-34 are identical in track width.


  • Well, like I said, you can pick up an assortment of individual pieces from FMG’s retail website for your reference purposes for much less than that…

    I think if your mediums are going to be the size of WotC pieces, the World’s Forge Bren Carrier might be a good reference point for light tanks.  We don’t seem to have yet found a consensus for the upper limit for heavy tanks, but I think we’ve definitely concluded that they at least can’t be BIGGER than the TWG Tiger; how much smaller than this seems to be unclear still…  (If you don’t have TWG on the shelf, TWG Tigers are about the size of your current Panzer IV’s…)

  • Customizer

    Dr Larsen,
    I know this is going back a ways, but I have another question about your cool chart for the 10 different land units and their Att, Def, Move, Cost.  It’s about the Armored Infantry.  Would those be able to blitz by themselves, without a tank?


  • I like the bren carrier as a point of reference, but it is too wide (well, it is appropriate as the bren carrier was quite square). However, a light tank would be narrower.


  • It’s about the Armored Infantry.  Would those be able to blitz by themselves, without a tank?

    I would say yes to that, treating the “Armored” or “Mech” (halftrack) unit like a tank in this respect, and have the motorized infantry unit (truck) follow the current AA40 rule that they need to be accompanied… but what do y’all think?

    I like the bren carrier as a point of reference, but it is too wide (well, it is appropriate as the bren carrier was quite square). However, a light tank would be narrower.

    That’s fair enough; I was thinking more in terms of length anyway.  Of course, with some of TT’s units, if you merely scale down without major changes they might have a similar width, like the M24’s (though the difference would actually be accurate as compared to an M3/M5 Stuart)…

    Anyway, bottom line, I think if he got all of his light tanks (at least the “true” light tanks) down to this length the rest of the proportions would probably work fine, I think…  Would that work for you?

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