Consolidated 1/285 Wish List

[mike robel]

Shawno, I agree with your approach. I am afraid the money is going to have to go into a new main battle tank, however. M1 is long of tooth and I wonder how much modification it has left in it. I do believe there is a requirement for a strong tank force. I would like to see a cavalry tank, not to mention cavalry organizations, as part of the U.S. force. The M8 is probably the shortest, cheapest course to that end. Mike Robel won't let me have any more armor-pure battalions, although I would like to have them. Maybe I can trade M8s to get them...

Like I could stop you from buying them. I just try to convince you that combined arms battalions are better as would be combined arms companies.

[panzergator]

And I argue that branch-specific individual and collective training suffers as do officer mentoring and evaluations. Infantry officers can be incredibly myopic when it comes to mechanized and combined arms operations. The team and task force training can take place after the basics of each branch. I was cross-attached to a mech infantry company as a platoon leader. I was fortunate the company commander would listen to me. He was a good guy, and good with infantry, but didn't know anything about tanks or combined operations and I will wager it is no different now. I also had to tell him where he was half the time, but that isn't unusual at Hohenfels. No, no GPS. Paper maps. It was the Seventies..

This will go on till the end of time, Mike.

[mike robel]

And I argue that branch-specific individual and collective training suffers as do officer mentoring and evaluations. Infantry officers can be incredibly myopic when it comes to mechanized and combined arms operations. The team and task force training can take place after the basics of each branch. I was cross-attached to a mech infantry company as a platoon leader. I was fortunate the company commander would listen to me. He was a good guy, and good with infantry, but didn't know anything about tanks or combined operations and I will wager it is no different now. I also had to tell him where he was half the time, but that isn't unusual at Hohenfels. No, no GPS. Paper maps. It was the Seventies..

This will go on till the end of time, Mike.

Part of the fun. But the only way the infantry will get better is if we help them with permanent combined arms teams and task forces. Otherwise, they will be like lost sheep their whole lives!

[shawno]

Combined arms makes sense on the battlefield during operations, but it presents issues in garrison when it comes to training and career management. These issues can definitely be overcome, but it might require some empire-smashing. I don't know about you guys...but the military I served in was more focused on building empires, not breaking them.

[mike robel]

My feeling is train as you fight, fight as you train. If we can't do it in garrison, it'll be harder than in the field.

Armored Cavalry Troops, just slightly before my day had Mechanics, Cooks, Radar guys, Scouts, Tankers, Mortarmen (technically Infantry), Infantry Squads, Supply guys, NBC guys, and maybe some others. Somehow we managed.

Cavalry Squadrons have three troops and a tank company or a Weapons Company (AT vehicles or MGS) depending on if they are in an ABCT or an SBCT. Infantry Cavalry Squadrons have two troops of HMMWV and one troop of dismounted scouts.

Now, because we somehow got dumber, our Cavalry Troops are either all Strykers or All Bradleys, with a couple mortars mixed in. No radars, the troop commander doesn't own his own mechanics.

And we don';t have Cavalry Regiments anymore, inspite of the guys in the 2nd and 3rd Cavalry Regiments thinking they are, they are just motorized infantry. The 11th ACR is a Armored Brigade Combat Team (-) with only two battalions and a little bit of other stuff. The balance is in the National Guard, and the 278th ACR is an ABCT in the TN ARNG.

battalion scout platoons are either a mixture of Bradleys and HMMWs, HMMWVs, or Strykers.

By and large they are all too heavy to scout and too light to fight.

It's kind of like toilet paper in the barracks. If my supply sergeant can't get toilet paper into the barracks, we cannot possibly get ammunition and fuel in combat.

This is however, just my opinion and not really good for providing our wants to GHQ, so switching to that, I suggest we drop everything with less than two votes, and let everyone vote to see if we can get a solid opinion on about 10 things that we really want. Those who have participated are not a majority of people on the forum and I doubt that people on the forum do not constitute the majority of GHQ customers.

If the forum supports a poll, then the items should be listed in the poll and we should only get 10 votes to spread among those things currently with >2 votes.

Just my opinion, like the other stuff I wrote above.

[CG2]

I'm sure you gents can build your own forces to to overcome the failures of your respective nations!

Here's the list of items with more than 1 vote, just for interest :

Period Votes Nation Item Note

Cold War/Vietnam 3 Israel Caterpillar D9 Bulldozer Armoured or Unarmoured
Cold War/Vietnam 3 USA Special Forces Pack Boonie Hats
Cold War/Vietnam 2 Commonwealth Infantry Pack with SLR and Bush Hat
Cold War/Vietnam 2 Czechoslovakia Dana M1 SPG
Cold War/Vietnam 2 Israel MAR-290 Rocket Launcher
Cold War/Vietnam 2 Soviet Union TMM Truck-mounted Bridge
Cold War/Vietnam 2 USA XM-803 tank
Cold War/Vietnam 2 USA M53 155mm SPH
Cold War/Vietnam 2 USA Rough Terrain Clark Wheeled Loader
Cold War/Vietnam 2 USA Trailers for M800/900 series trucks

New Range 4 Generic WW1 & Interwar French/British/USA (esp Intewar)/Germany
New Range 2 Generic Spacecraft Particularly Saturn V/Apollo

Ultra-Modern 5 France EBRC Jaguar
Ultra-Modern 4 Russia T-15 APC
Ultra-Modern 4 USA M8 Buford http://www.military-today.com/tanks/m8_buford.htm
Ultra-Modern 3 Britain Ajax Tank
Ultra-Modern 3 Generic Civilians News crew, vip, medics, close protection, PMCs etc
Ultra-Modern 3 USA LAV-AD Air Defence variant
Ultra-Modern 2 Canada Lynx Armored Reconnaissance vehicle
Ultra-Modern 2 Finland Patria AMV
Ultra-Modern 2 Generic Civilian Vehicles GMC Suburban and a Ford Crown Victoria
Ultra-Modern 2 Generic Working Dog pack Military/Security/Police animals
Ultra-Modern 2 Germany Wiesel 2
Ultra-Modern 2 Russia Ka-52 Alligator

W47 2 Germany Dornier Do 335
W47 2 Germany Heinkel He.162
W47 2 USA M38 Wolfhound Armored Car

WW2 4 Italy Italian Command Pack 508 CM Coloniale staff car & Dovunque Viberti radio truck/office body (4/1). Alternative to radio truck - Topolino car plus trailer
WW2 4 Italy Bersaglieri Motorcycle troops 5 two up with riders, 1 tricycle with towed(?) weapon(s), 2 parked without riders or multiples of these proportions
WW2 3 Italy Alpini Infantry pack Regular combat poses for the Eastern Front and Greece. Some pack mules.
WW2 2 Britain Engineers Bangalore, mines and/or satchel charges, Assault teams plus flamethrowers, Mine field clearing (detector, bayonet etc), Bridge work (various)
WW2 2 Britain Churchill Kangaroo
WW2 2 Germany Engineers Mines and/or satchel charges, Assault teams plus flamethrowers, Mine field clearing (detector, bayonet etc), Bridge work (various)
WW2 2 Japan Type 96 150mm howitzer with Tractors
WW2 2 Soviet Union Engineers Mines and/or satchel charges, Assault teams plus flamethrowers, Mine field clearing (detector, bayonet etc), Bridge work (various)
WW2 2 Soviet Union Voroshilovets Tractor
WW2 2 USA Sherman M4/M4A1 ETO Summer 1944 75mm guns. With split commander's hatch, M34A1 mantlet, applique armor, no loader's hatch
WW2 2 USA Engineers Bangalore, mines and/or satchel charges, Assault teams plus flamethrowers, Mine field clearing (detector, bayonet etc), Bridge work (various)

[panzergator]

Mike, after the initial pulse, everybody will be unfamiliar anyway, so all that training together will be used up. Units will be cross attaching as circumstances require and permit and will have nothing to do with how we trained. If we always trained with the same folks we will not have identified the essential information and practiced its exchange, and doing it on the fly, as we will likely will do in combat. What's more, doing it as a division provides more resources from which to cross-attach, which is why I don't care for the ABCT. Brigade combat teams grew out of deployment packages for small wars. We need to be prepared to fight a big one.I

Those folks you specified - supply, mecanics, etc actually did their real jobs every day, so they got plenty of practice. The combat Gus got classroom stuff, guard duty, rock painting. They had to wait for the tangible range, local training are, gunnery maybe three times a ear, and Hohenfels twice a year for collective training.

I guess we can discuss this via email. I think we should maintain all suggestions and let THE decide what is a viable product. Some of their selections have really surprised me, so I have no idea what their criteria are.

[CG2]

I would love to see a post from GHQ on how they go about selecting which models to produce and when they make the decisions!

[panzergator]

me,too

[mike robel]

I think we should maintain all suggestions and let THE decide what is a viable product. Some of their selections have really surprised me, so I have no idea what their criteria are.

Undoubtedly, GHQ has a method and we don't know it. Whatever it is, it works for him and for perhaps his whole market; maybe just not those of us who frequent the forum.

My point here is the list is large and there is no overwhelming favorite of even the small number of people who are proposing items on it.

It should get consolidated down to the most wanted items, then we vote to try to come to a sizeable consensus of what will sell.

The choices provided are in the main, the wants of a single individual. I wouldn't even look at them. I'm not even sure I would look at the 4 votes for the M8 as qualifying for me to commit to drawing, producing a mold, and producing the thing. If there was something that had 20 or 30, I'd probably look at those.

Many wargame companies now have a threshold for the proposed games they have. GMT games has a P500. They need 500 people to sign up saying they will buy the game. You can change your vote any time, but until it reaches 500 copies they don't put it on the production queue. If it doesn't reach 500 within a certain time, they take it off the list and allow the designer to try to market it elsewhere.

You can even pile on to the P500 price after it makes the cut and until almost until they announce they are charging you and shipping.

It's a technique. It works for them. May not work for anyone else.

[CG2]

GHQ does not have a method for showing commitment. However, GHQ often produce things that they know people will only buy 1 of. There's probably a formula to be invented based on :

- ** CENSORED ** of item
- real quantity produced
- number of customers from that country
- criticality of country to conflict

So a Sherman scores highly as evidenced by GHQ production but a W47 italian truck doesn't.

[CG2]

Just for fun : Number of votes for each country by period.

No surprise that the USA figures heavily bearing in mind GHQ's customer base but Italians in the lead for WW2! Surprising that there are so few requests for Chinese in Ultra-Modern - the USA seems to have changed its focus towards China as the principal enemy but we're still fighting the Russians!

Period Nation CountOfItem

Cold War/Vietnam USA 31
Cold War/Vietnam Israel 6
Cold War/Vietnam Soviet Union 5
Cold War/Vietnam Canada 5
Cold War/Vietnam Britain 4
Cold War/Vietnam Germany 3
Cold War/Vietnam Czechoslovakia 3
Cold War/Vietnam Egypt/Syria 2
Cold War/Vietnam Generic 2
Cold War/Vietnam Commonwealth 2
Cold War/Vietnam Jordan 2
Cold War/Vietnam France 1
Cold War/Vietnam North Vietnam 1

New Range Generic 7

Ultra-Modern USA 15
Ultra-Modern Generic 12
Ultra-Modern Russia 8
Ultra-Modern Canada 6
Ultra-Modern France 6
Ultra-Modern Japan 5
Ultra-Modern Germany 5
Ultra-Modern Britain 4
Ultra-Modern Finland 2
Ultra-Modern Israel 2
Ultra-Modern Multi-National 1
Ultra-Modern South Africa 1
Ultra-Modern Sweden/Britain 1
Ultra-Modern Switzerland 1
Ultra-Modern China 1
Ultra-Modern Italy 1

W47 USA 14
W47 Germany 10
W47 Britain 3
W47 Japan 1
W47 France 1
W47 China 1
W47 Soviet Union 1

WW2 Italy 13
WW2 USA 10
WW2 Britain 7
WW2 Germany 6
WW2 Generic 5
WW2 Soviet Union 5
WW2 Canada 3
WW2 Japan 2
WW2 Belgium 1

[mike robel]

DO NOT GET INTO A LAND WAR IN ASIA!!!!!!!,

Even in simulation

[CG2]

I fancy my chances - GHQ doesn't make any of the Chinese nuclear-capable weapons!

[pmskaar]

Hi CG2. Thanks for putting together this list. I see the list here and some of it, especially WWII and Cold War would be things I would buy.

I have not seen much call for infantry except for the WWII Italians and British and German engineer types.

Here are some WWII that could be done for completeness sake.

British Heavy Weapons #2. It would include Vickers MGs w. crew, a 3 inch mortar w. crew and maybe a proper 2 inch mortar as well. The original 2 inch mortar is not correct having a bipod mount.

Russian Heavy Weapons #2, Maxim MG w. crew, 82 inch mortar w. crew, maybe some Russians w. panzerfausts or carrying the ATR.

American Heavy Weapons #2. M1917 and M1919 .30 cal MGs w. crew, an 81mm Mortar w. crew, and maybe a chemical mortar w. crew as well.

Here are Cold War era infantry GHQ does not currently make. These would be for the 70s and 80s.

British infantry and heavy weapons.

French infantry and heavy weapons.

W. German infantry and heavy weapons.

Russian motorized infantry. These would have the knee boots and lighter kit.

East German infantry and heavy weapons.

U.S. infantry and heavy weapons. Would include steel pots as opposed to Fritz helmets. Ground mounted TOW w. crew. This would cover mid 1970s to early 80s before BDUs and the Fritz helmet.

Arab infantry w. heavy weapons. These could probably be used for both Egyptians and Syrians for the '67 and '73 wars.

Jordanian infantry w. heavy weapons.

Israeli infantry and heavy weapons for the '67 and '73 wars.

I hope some of you out there would like to see these as well.

Thanks.