GHQ Models Forums

Replaced by updated list 2008-06-08.

Don S.

wow i wonder how ghq selects there new models if not by popular vote?

I would like to add:
USS Nevada (as built)
USS Tennessee (as built)
USS West Virginia (as built)
USS Pennsylvania (Later Pittsburgh [ACR-4])
USS Tennessee (Later Memphis [ACR-10])
USS South Carolina
HMS Hampshire
HMS Caroline
The Lexington class as BC's would be interesting as well.

Here is my updated Micronaut Consolidated Wish List for 2009-2010. Unfortunately (from my point of view) it is identical to the 2008 - 2009 list because not a single one of my top dozen made the GHQ production schedule for this year. To ease my depression, I am going to put in another vote for each of my favorites. For all the other Micronaut fans; you are welcome to do the same.

So here's the idea:
- Provide your list of the Micronauts you would most like to see produced in the 2009-2010 season. In June 2009, when the 2009-2010 production schedule is announced, I will abandon this thread and start a new one for 2009-2010.
- I won’t put a limit on the number of ships on your list, but try to restrict yourself to about a dozen ships. In the 2008-2009 season, GHQ scheduled 12 Micronauts for release.
- Provide some support for your choice. Try to convince other customers that they want your choice and GHQ that your choices are good for the company.
- Although most my choices are from the WW II era, don't feel limited to this time. This just happens to be my favorite era. If you prefer modern or WW I era ships, feel free to express your opinion. Eventually, I want to get into Spanish-American War and Russo-Japanese War eras.
- Please feel free to criticize my choices.

My choices are (in alphabetical order of country of origin):

1. Germany CA Admiral Scheer (ex-Deutschland), preferably as in November, 1940, but a later appearance would be OK. If this were available, it would be a good reason to ask for a Jervis Bay as well. Everyone makes Graf Spee, but no one makes a Scheer (or Lutzow) in 1/2400 scale. Conversion of Graf Spee to these ships is somewhat difficult.

2. Germany T-1939 class (T-22 through T-36 torpedo boats) - No one makes a 1/2400 metal model of this class, which were widely active during the war. With a reasonable number of ships in the class, many collectors & gamers would buy several packs. (GHQ models of the T-1923, T-1924, T-1935, and T-1937 torpedo boats would also be welcome, even though a competitor makes reasonable models of these classes.)

3. Germany AMC Kormoran – One of the most successful raiders of WW II, best known for its mutually-destructive battle with HMS Sydney. Surprisingly, no one makes a 1/2400 metal model of this ship. Any of the other German raiders would also be welcome (perhaps even Sea Adler from WW I).

4. Italy CA Pola - This ship differed from all the other Italian heavy cruisers in its combination of hull and superstructure. No one makes a 1/2400 model in metal.

5. Japan torpedo boats Otori class – Although a competitor makes a 1/2400 model of this class, its quality is not up to that of GHQ. These ships were ineffective in their designed role but were expended as escorts. GHQ does not produce any of the Japanese escort-type ships of WWII.

6. Japan late-war navy aircraft: Yokosuka D4Y [Judy] (both in-line & radial versions – neither had folding wings), Aichi B7A Ryusei [Grace] (open & folded wings), Kawanishi N1K1-J Shiden [George], Yokosuka P1Y Ginga [Frances]. Although Jill, Val, etc. continued fighting to the end of the war, they were meat on the table for Hellcats and Corsairs. I need some improved aircraft to make hypothetical late-war carrier battles more evenly balanced.

7. UK BB Vanguard - Although this ship was not completed until after the end of the war, it could have been completed earlier and fits into a number of hypothetical scenarios. Besides that, it's a beautiful ship that no one models in 1/2400 metal.

8. UK BB Lion class - This is the sole hypothetical ship on my list. Although unfinished, the first two of this class were at least laid down. GHQ makes models of the German H and the US Montana classes, which got no further. The Japanese don't need hypothetical BBs with Yamato & Musashi. No one makes a 1/2400 metal model of this class.

9. UK CL Modified Colony class (Ceylon, Newfoundland, Uganda) - All the available 1/2400 models of the Colony class are the earlier version with four triple-6" mounts. No one makes the version with additional antiaircraft replacing one of the four 6" mounts. Also, many of the earlier Colony class were modified to this appearance during the war.

10. UK sloops Black Swan class - I've got plenty of 'flower' class corvettes, but the British had hundreds of other escort-type ships (Bay, Loch, Bittern, Egret, etc.). Any of these would be a welcome addition. Other than “Flowerâ€￾ class corvettes, the only other 1/2400 model of a WWII British escort is a competitor’s Avon class.

11. US CA-35 Indianapolis (final configuration) – We are getting close to being able to represent all the US pre-war heavy cruiser types in both early-war & late-war configuration. A late-war CA-24 (Pensacola) or CA-27 (Chester) would also be welcome, but Indianapolis gets my vote because of her tragic sinking. No one makes a 1/2400 model of a late-war Indianapolis.

12. US BB-36 Nevada (as originally built) – Extending the current GWS series either back to BB-26, South Carolina, or forward to BB-36 seems reasonable. Although neither saw combat at this time, both were revolutionary designs. I selected Nevada for its “all-or-nothingâ€￾ armor and because Dreadnought overshadowed South Carolina. No one makes a 1/2400 model of this ship in its initial appearance.

Don S.

I am putting in a list of my second dozen of most-wanted Micronauts.

My choices are (in alphabetical order of country of origin):

1. France BB Gascogne. FRN3, Lorraine, just doesn’t model the appearance of the other two ships of the original class. I might even suggest using this to start a GWF series, as the appearance didn’t change much between the wars.

2. France TT Le Melpomene class. Not really successful in their intended role, many of these ships saw service as escorts on both sides of the war. I would like to have more of this type of small warship available in 1/2400 scale.

3. Germany WWII Aircraft Pack 2. Fw 190A/F, Ju 88 (or Ju 188) with dive-bomber or torpedo-bomber armament, He 111 (preferably with torpedo armament), He 115 floatplane, and/or He 177 (preferably with FX 1400 guided bomb or Hs 293 missiles). All five types played significant roles in maritime combat. If not Fw 190A/F, then Bf 109T – the Germans have got to have a single-engine fighter. Maybe even both fighter types instead of one of the Heinkel types.

4. Japan DD Akatsuki class. Although similar to the Fubuki class, the Akatsukis had smaller forward funnels and several other detail differences. To the best of my knowledge, no one makes a 1/2400 model of this class.

5. Japan TT Tomozuru class. Similar in size to the French Le Melpomene class and wanted for a similar reason. The Japanese initially loaded too much armament on these ships, making them dangerously unstable until modified.

6. UK BB Duke of York (Anson & Howe). Although less famous than KGV and PoW, the remainder of the modern British battleships of WWII should be modeled. As with Prince of Wales, the superstructure differences are manageable, but converting the KGV hull is just too difficult.

7. UK inter-war destroyer leaders (Codrington, Keith, Assinboine, Exmouth, Faulknor, Grenville, Hardy, and Inglefield). The British built a slightly larger leader for each of the destroyer classes from “Aâ€￾ through “I.â€￾ Although each of these ships was slightly different, they could reasonably be represented by three moldings.

8. UK BB Prince of Wales. This is a historically-important ship that deserves a 1/2400 model. It’s just too hard to remove the external degaussing cable from KGV. Preferably, PoW would have the light AA that was added shortly before it was sunk.

9. UK CA York. Exeter is much more famous, but York deserves a good 1/2400 model. The significant differences in the superstructure make it very difficult to convert Exeter to York.

10. US Navy & Marine early-war aircraft: Brewster F2A Buffalo, Douglas TBD Devastator, and Vought SBU Vindicator. The Buffalo, Devastator, and Vindicator are absolutely necessary for early-war scenarios such as Coral Sea and Midway.

11. US BB-42, Idaho (as modified with single enclosed 5â€￾ mounts). This ship had a unique appearance and was involved in combat with this arrangement. To the best of my knowledge, no one makes a 1/2400 scale model.

12. US BB-26, South Carolina. The design of this ship, with four twin 12â€￾ mounts on the centerline, was ground-breaking. Only the use of steam piston engines instead of turbines and the British effort that completed Dreadnought in near-record time kept this ship from being recognized as the first modern capital ship.

Don S,

I like the idea of suggesting a top dozen, so here's my list:

1. WW2 HMS Vanguard - for the reasons mentioned
2. WW2 HMS Lion - have you seen the price Superior models of this ship fetch on eBay? There's got to be a pretty good market there.
3. WW1 - USS South Carolina - always interesting to pit these against pre-dreadnoughts
4. WW1 - USS Nevada - complete the entire WW1 US battlefleet
5. WW2 - KM Lutzow (ex.Deutschland) - I get tired of using three Graf Spee's when there weren't that many.
6. WW1 Courbet - very unusual design (six turrets - 4 centreline, 2 beam)
7. WW1 Conte de Cavour - key Italian dreadnought, and opens up interesting Mediterranean scenarios
8. WW1 Viribus Unitis - with these three and existing UK and German Great War ships you have a wealth of possible scenarios
9. WW1 IJN Kawachi - two different calibres of 12" guns, so if your rules take fire control into account that leads to significant problems. Can start looking at Russo-Japanese War Mark II.
10. WW2 - Bretagne after second refit. Also, if you scrunch up your eyes, you can use it in WW1 scenarios.
11. WW2 - HMS Enterprise
12. WW2 - KM Gneisnau - nice to have a set of 15" turrets included

So evenly split between WW1 and WW2, even though I mostly do WW1 naval gaming these days.

Replaced by updated list 2008-06-10.

Don S.

Donald M. Scheef wrote: 7. UK BB Vanguard - Although this ship was not completed until after the end of the war, it could have been completed earlier and fits into a number of hypothetical scenarios. Besides that, it's a beautiful ship that no one models in 1/2400 metal.

8. UK BB Lion class - This is the sole hypothetical ship on my list. Although unfinished, the first two of this class were at least laid down. GHQ makes models of the German H and the US Montana classes, which got no further. The Japanese don't need hypothetical BBs with Yamato & Musashi. No one makes a 1/2400 metal model of this class.

12. US BB-36 Nevada (as originally built) – Extending the current GWS series either back to BB-26, South Carolina, or forward to BB-36 seems reasonable. Although neither saw combat at this time, both were revolutionary designs. I selected Nevada for its “all-or-nothingâ€￾ armor and because Dreadnought overshadowed South Carolina. No one makes a 1/2400 model of this ship in its initial appearance.

I'll second these, & ask that request 12. include the New Mexico class as originally built.

In the spirit of hypotheticals & raiding the US coastline, there are some more modern Imperial German battlecruisers that could be built.

Hindenburg was completed
Mackensen class & Ersatz Yorck class were not completed, but intended to have heavier (13.8") armament.

Ersatz Yorck looks cool

Gentlemen (Ladies too, if there are any):

I was hoping we'd start over with a new list, since there's such a mob of ships on the old list. However, that won't stop me from pontificating (babbling?). I noticed that, in the '08 - '09 list, 7 of the top 14 most-wanted ships were unique (Shinano, Hipper, Scheer, Pola, Hosho, Vanguard, and Gneisenau) and three more had only two in class ( Bretagne, Nevada and Chitose). It seems to me that GHQ wouldn't want to produce a bunch of unique ships in one year, as profits would be low - I think. They want to make money, which means that they want to produce new ships that nut cases like me will buy several of. We need to put more larger classes at the top of the list.

With this in mind, below is my want list for next year. I've not only listed my "12", but alternatives for some of them (probably best to only put my "Big 12" on the list, & not include the alts.)

1. WW I - HMS Defence (3 ships at Jutland). This class made a lot of noise (1 blew up, if I remember right). It was a mean looking class, what with 12 gun turrets. I would want three of 'em. A good alternative would be the Black Prince class, which was also at Jutland. However, this class only had two ships.

2. WW I HMS Cambrian class (8 in class; 5 at ;Jutland). One thing about this class is that it only has two smokestacks - this makes it clearly different from the UK CLs that GHQ has already produced. AND, many of us would want at least five, which means several sales even if GHQ puts two in a package like their "C" and "D" classes. There are several other CL classes at Jutland that would b e good alternatives to this, including the well-known Southampton. However, there weren't as many of the other classes at Jutland.

3. WW I - BB South Carolina (2 ships). I second (third?) the comments already made about this class.

4. WW I BB Nevada (2 ships). This class had ten guns in four turrets, It would be clearly different from the Pennsy.

5. WW I - German type S13 TBDs. This class has a different layout (1 less gun) than the TBDs already produced by GHQ. I think that this model could be used for V1 through S24 (24 TBDs), and 19 of this group were at Jutland.

6. WW II - CV Chitose. This was popular in the '08 - '09 list. Both ships of the class were converted to full CVs, I understand (I think I may even have a camo pattern for this class). I'll second the votes on this class, although I'd probably prefer to see the Unryu class (I'd put 3 in my fleet). Shinano'd be nice, but there's only one of 'em, which would limit GHQ's profits.

7. WW II - AC Scheer. This was a famous ship. Unfortunately, it's unique. I include in this group of "unique" ships the AC Lutzow. CA Hipper, and the CA Pola. Any one of them would be great to have, but Scheer is at the top of the list. I've done a little work "kit-bashing"" a Prinz Eugen to make a Hipper. Filing down the bow was easy. However, I had some trouble cutting down the airplane hanger and stuff to better match Hipper. It's put away for now, while I waited to see if GHQ would put one in their new list.)

8. WW II - Soviet type 7U DDs. I'm no fan of the Soviet fleet, but I can see that this class, with two funnels, would really fill out the Soviets. Given GHQ's interest in this fleet, I wouldn't be surprised if the 7Us show up in a year or two. I'd probably buy 4 - 6 packages of these.

9. WW II - UK CL Sheffield. YHou could say that there were only two ships in this "class," because the first three "Cities" had only two HACS.. We need the one with the third HACS, as that could be trimmed off to more-closely match the first three. (5 ships in class).

10 - 12 ; I am (almost) a lonely voice for the French Fleet, but I ask you: HOW can the "Only Civilised Nation On The Earth" defend it's holy patrimony from the Perfidious Rosbifs, Barbarian Huns, Pasta Eaters, and Ignorant Money-Grubbing Colonials (HELLO Homeland Security!) without its full Escargot Fleet? We need:

10. WW II - Bretagne/Lorraine (2 ships).

11. WW II - CA Duquesne class (2 ships)

12. WW II - CL Duguay-Trouin class (3 ships)

There's my twelve.

I'm not in favor of a Prince of Wales model. However, my reason is selfish. I've just finished kit-bashing four ships, by removing the degaussing cable (where necessary), replacing the UPs with pom-pom guns, and installing 6 - 10 20 mm gun tubs on the decks (different for each ship). Still looking for a gun-tub layout for PoW, but hope to have that soon. I couldn't put the 20mm singles on the bridge and boat deck, but that's a minor thing to me. I'd r3eally hate to see a PoW come out just after I modified my ships.

There you are. There's a ton of ships I'd like to have, but I can't have 'em all right now. This list is, to some extent, designed to provide a want list that GHQ might find acceptable, with a mix of 'singles' and 'multiples.' That might be the way we should look at our "Most Wanted."

Take Care; Mikee

2009-2010 Consolidated Micronaut Wish List Summary

Replaced with updated list 2008-06-11.

Don S.

I was doing some research over the weekend on what ships should be the highest priority for GHQ to produce. My priority for production has always been on ships that actually fought in a battle having the highest priority, after all, what gets gamed the most? Historic battles. Now, the mother of all modern historic naval battles is of course - Jutland. Yes it is big and can be hard to pull off, but it still gets massive attention in gaming circles as well as every other history related circle. When we game Napoleonics, the measure is always Waterloo. When we game WWII, it is Normandy, Viet Nam - the Tet offensive. For WWI naval, it is Jutland.

So how does GHQ measure up when looking at it through the Jutland prism?
Battleships and Battlecruisers: Only HMS Neptune is missing for the British, and only the predreadnought Hessen on the German side.
Armored Cruisers: Only 2 of the 8 British CA's at Jutland are available
Light Cruisers: Only 4 of 11 German, and only 7 of 26 British are available
Destroyers: 46 of 77 British, but only 14 of 62 German available
Submarines: 0 of 19 possible
Zeppelins: 0 of 3 possible
Auxiliaries: 0

Looks great at the capital ship level, but quickly deteriorates after that. There's a lot of work to do here to get to the point where Jutland has adequate coverage. Fortunately, the ships at Jutland are also the same ships that would appear in a Scarborough scenario or Dogger Bank (GHQ has the Blucher), and many of the what-if scenarios. So resources committed here are well spent.

GHQ has just spent two years expanding their WWI line in some unique ways that leave them well positioned to differentiate their line from competitors (a wise marketing move), but I think we can take a recess from that for a bit and build up the core again. So for WWI I would make the following recommendations:

1. BB HMS Neptune - only one left, let's gitt 'er done!
2. CA HMS Defence - covers 3 of the 6 missing CA's, and these are important for other battles as well.
3. CL HMS Cambrian - Since the Calliope's are very similar, this would fill 5 more missing CL's at Jutland and provide a total of six new CL's.
4. DD Acasta or K class - 16 were with 4th DF at Jutland, 20 were built.
5. CL SMS Wiesbaden - She and sister Frankfurt would fill up II Scouting Group
6. DD V1/G7/S13 classes - all similar, 24 total, 19 of them were with 5th and 7th TBF's at Jutland.

That would give us a good mix to work with and would be a good faith effort to filling in the gaps at Jutland. Since GHQ has averaged 6 models for WWI and 6 for WWII over the past three years I decided to stop there and allow the remaining six for WWII as follows:

7. BB HMS Prince of Wales - Must have a KGV w/o external degaussing cable, and at this scale she could be used for the other three as well.
8. CA HMAS Australia - we've got Canberra, let's get her sister, and this kit would be good for HMS Kent as well.
9. CA Admiral Scheer - look at the demand for this ship, if you build it, it will sell!!!
10. DE T22 - Germany must have a TB, this one is in heavy demand.
11. BB Bretagne - France needs to be filled out, and this would account for two important early war battleships (Provence is very similar).
12. SS Italian 600t series subs, these were vital to the Italian war effort in the Med, if these won't sell, then substitute the CA Pola.

...and that's my vote, now to follow GHQ's advice and whittle this down to 2 or 3 that I really, really, really must have!!!

Chris

Replaced by updated version 2008-06-11.

Don S.

2009-2010 Consolidated Micronaut Wish List Summary

Replaced by updated list 2008-06-12

Don S.

2009-2010 Consolidated Micronaut Wish List Summary

Replaced by updated version 2008-06-15

Don S.