GHQ Models Forums

What with the upcoming release of the Russian tank riders, I was wondering about the actual tank commanders. For example the ridged caps of the Russians or the early German berets. Flags would be helpful to designate the commanders too.
Alan

Yeah that would be great. Even if GHQ did a pack of WW2 commanders (all nations) and modern commanders (covering the main nations/conflicts) I'm sure they would sell.

It does seem strange that we can get vehicles of which only a few where made, but of the thousands of vehicles made we cannot have dedicated operators. This is not unique to GHQ but to all the manufactures. How cool it would be to have tank crews standing on top of their vehicles, as you see in so many photos, due to the limited visibility . From what I have watched it would seem that the only time the crew would "button up' would be in the actual firefight.

It might be as simple as GHQ doesn't want to make dedicated crew because then the scale difference between their infantry and their vehicles will be obvious. The infantry are larger than scale so they can be made with lots of detail. Vehicle crews, tank riders or commanders, will have to be in scale with the vehicle or they will look like the Shriners driving clown cars. When placed next to the existing infantry the crew(s) will look like child soldiers. I am very curious to see the tank riders and see how they handle scale.

av8mongo, you are right as that is a problem that did not occur to me. I must say that I have often used the artillery figures cut off at the waist and attached to the turrets to designate the leaders. So it would seem that the idea of national commanders is a dead issue. Sad
Alan

The "other" Minnesota based company has successfully incorporated tank commanders for years with selective packs.



Sadly I don't think they will be around much longer.

For all the talk about GHQ figures being out of scale, I have never had any problems using GHQ figures in my GHQ vehicles as crew.













Seems to me that they fit just fine together.

Mk 1 wrote:For all the talk about GHQ figures being out of scale, I have never had any problems using GHQ figures in my GHQ vehicles as crew...

Seems to me that they fit just fine together.

I'm glad you've had some success. Now if you have moderns take a milan man/launcher from the UK heavy weapons pack and try to mount that figure on a TPz-1 after drilling out the top center hatch. Take a picture, post it and tell me they fit just fine together. I'm sorry but both man and launcher are too damn big.

Here are my observations on this subject. GHQ actually makes 3 sizes of "1/285th" scale figures.

1. The first size is their original "block" style infantry, seated infantry, panzergrenadiers, and other assorted figures designed to go into the vehicles. I do believe that these guys match pretty well with the vehicles and in the case of the seated infantry and panzergrenadiers are actually designed for use inside the vehicles.
Closely related are the newer artillery crews. These crews were made closer to the original GHQ figure scale so that they will work with the various artillery pieces that GHQ makes. Their bases will make them a bit taller than the guns they are serving unless you put some spacers under the wheels and trails of the guns and then they are pretty correct looking.

2. The next size that GHQ does is their individual infantry for most WWII and moderns. These are slightly larger by a millimeter or two and a bit large to be riding around on the vehicles in my opinion. Therefore, if you take one of these figures and cut their bases off or even cut the legs off they will still look a bit large on the vehicle. I don't have a problem mixing my slightly larger infantry stands next to GHQ vehicles but I do have an issue of the bigger infantry riding on the vehicles.

3. The largest size is what some people call "heroic". These guys are definitely a bit large even compared to most of the regular individual infantry that GHQ makes. The most notorious of these are the WWII American Paratroopers which don't match any of the other WWII infantry and are just too large in my opinion.

I would like to see GHQ do some more vehicles crews and tank commander type figures but in the proper vehicle scale.

To sum up, you can use the variety of actual crew figures that GHQ currently makes to outfit various vehicles. The figure with the binoculars that comes with the seated American infantry can be used for a lot of American and even Russian vehicles. If you want to give him a more "British" look, you can file the helmet down on one side and make it into a beret. I did this for a British jeep by filing the headgear down on the American jeep driver.
The artillery crews can be used by carefully cutting off their bases. I will be using some of these guys to give some crews for my open topped Marders and tank destroyers.
I did look at some of the individual infantry but consider them too large to be on the vehicles. They will look like they are in 3/4 scale vehicles or something like that.

Those are my thoughts. Have a great day!

Pete

I think Pete's comment that there seem to be more than one size of GHQ figures is quite accurate. And I don't deny av8r's assertion that a particular figure, or even set of figures, might not work well.

So we might consider some care in choosing which figures we mount on our vehicles. But I do not think the differences would somehow limit GHQ's abilities to create dedicated vehicle crew figures if they so choose.

I have seen the information posted here about the GHQ US Paras. They do seem to be notably larger than any of the GHQ figures I have bought over the years. So also I have seen comments posted here about the GHQ Vietnam infantry figures. They also seem to be larger. I do not own either, so can not speak from personal experience.

The ones I do own, and so with which I do have personal experience, do vary in size a bit. But I do not find that to be limiting, in my case. The largest variances I have seen, and have seen other posters mention, is between the the recent individual infantry packs, the individual artillery crew packs, and the packs of figures made to go into the halftracks. So ...

In particular, regarding this comment: "Vehicle crews, tank riders or commanders, will have to be in scale with the vehicle or they will look like the Shriners driving clown cars. When placed next to the existing infantry the crew(s) will look like child soldiers" I find that I disagree.


Here are (L-R) a GHQ Romanian infantry figure, a GHQ US Artillery figure, a GHQ US Armored Infantry gunner, and a UK-made brand-X 1/300 artillery crew figure with binocs. Yes it is clear that the armored infantry gunner (made specifically to fit in a GHQ vehicle) is a bit smaller. But it does not look like a child soldier to me, and I perceive no "clown car" appearance when I use the artillery figures in my vehicles.


I have also found that real people in 1-to-1 scale, also vary in size. Here I am doing the Spahpanzer shuffle with two friends who have occasionally posted on this forum (though not recently enough that most would recognize their nic's). I would observe that you can find significant variances in height even in a small population. Greater variance, in fact, than between the figures shown in the prior photo.


If we would like to see more credible sources on armor in our discussion, I offer this picture of authors Steven Zaloga and Michael Green, with a Panther for scale reference. I would observe that even among recognizable authorities on armor, one man's height might well reach to the top of a Panther's engine deck, while another's does not even come close to the top of the engine deck.


I often mix figures from different packs on one stand if it serves my purposes. Here among the units of my Romanian HQ, the center stand has one Romanian infantry figure (the grenadier, with arms bent to look like he is not involved in combat at the moment), one Italian officer figure (with inexplicable kepi, filed to look like a Romanian officer's bustina cap) and one US artillery figure (with the equally inexplicable range finder clipped to appear as binoculars).


Here I have some M6 "Fargo" US light tank destroyers from the other guys (bought and painted before GHQ announced they would make the same model). I have used mostly GHQ US Armored Infantry seated figures as the gun crews, but added a GHQ US Artillery figure standing to one of the models just for some variety. I do not find that the standing figure looks outsized compared to any similar population of men I have ever seen.

Just my own experiences and results. You may like your armies to be all exactly the same height. It just doesn't matter to me if I see some variance between figures. And I don't see GHQ being limited if they want to make crew figures that fit well (and easily) with their vehicles.

Mk 1 wrote:...armies to be all exactly the same height.

I don't think anyone has said this or anything like this.

I fully concede that there is wide variation in heights of actual humans and any assembly, if the sample size is large enough, will tend to show a bell shaped distribution.

I also concede that your assembly of four select figures shows what could be a reasonable distribution. But there are problems with the presentation in my mind that make your argument less persuasive.

1. The figure you have identified as the US Armored Infantry gunner is noticeably smaller than the other figures, both stature and "bulk". Not a problem in a random assemblage of a handful of figures but suppose you have a pack's worth of these diminutive figures. I think the child soldier ** CENSORED ** would be more apparent.

2. The ruler shows some approximation of scale but not accurately enough to know how much difference there is between figures. They look to be within +/- .5mm of 6mm. The fact that some have bases and some do not makes the height comparison less clear. If accurate measurements were available perhaps we could tell for sure. [Conjecture based on eyeball calibration -The gunner appears to be on the order of 5.5mm in height (eyeballed from the photo). If true that's about 5' 2"ish to 5' 7"ish a little below the average height of U.S. males today. Appropriate for 1940's? Maybe. But then the others would seem to be above average size for the 1940's.]

I concede that with careful selection a figure can be found that looks reasonable in some applications. But that is the essence of my problem with the scale of the infantry packs. They are not scaled to the vehicles. If they were to scale then there would be no need for taking "some care in choosing which figures to use," they would all work. I recognize the fact that this is due to the limitations of the materials used and the consumer desire for greater detail.

I agree that the differences won't limit GHQ's ability to create dedicated vehicle crews if they choose. They have time and again demonstrated the talent and mastery of their profession that would allow them to create anything they want. My point is they might not choose to do it. Every time a new infantry pack comes out the discussion of scale comes up - this discussion obvious proof of that. They may decide the return on the effort/investment is not worth hearing the same discussion again.

I for one sincerely hope they do create crew members in vehicle scale. I would love to have milan gunners, tank commanders, mortar crews or any of that for my vehicles. I'm just afraid they won't do it.

Wow! I did not realize what a hornets' nest I started. My post was not meant to be a criticism of a company that I have had really enjoyed for many years.
Alan

I find that it is very difficult to get any manufacturers figures to fit properly for crews.

I wanted to put some crew figures in a GHQ M7 Priest, a vehicle I thought would be perfect for fitting some figures in.

I found that even 'Brand-X' 1/300th stick-figure artillery crews had to have their bases cut off to get their height down enough.

They did look good though

I'll see if I can get some piccies....

But yeah, GHQ figures are a bit large, especially the latest ones. The Modern Brits are HUGE and I just can't use them even with GHQ vehicles.

I have not had a problem with the scale difference between the Artillery figures and SP type vehicles. WW2 US Artillery crews go well with the M7's as long as you snip off the base.




So do the German Artillery crews. Have not snipped off the base on some in the deeper part of the vehicle but have done so for the ones standing up higher.

Hey now this wold be a cool and fearful looking scratch build with the new ghq tank commander pack!!! You could build the umbrellas out of tin foil!!