Vehicle scale best for 28mm figures?

[tin shed gamer]

The Johnson comes in has a ten round cylinder magazine that gets upto give or take the 4" mark as the furniture adjusts to compensate for the magazine.  The Romanian rifle sized submachine gun is monster of a weapon to as it fires full powered rifle cartridges.

[FramFramson]

Ah if it's magazines I can understand.

Full-size machine guns masquerading as LMGs (or LMGs masquerading as mere automatic rifles) is also a thing, true.

[Grumpy Gnome]

Two possible hatch solutions:
 
* Use Rubicon or Perry figures for crew.  ( I do something similar with my 1/87 tanks — my infantry are mostly 1/76–72, but vehicle crews are 1/87 pr Peter Pig 15mm.)

* Styrene plastic is your friend, build the hatch bigger.  Widen the current opening.  Wrap some styrene rod around the outside to widen the frame, cut new hatch from sheet styrene

Reworking the hatches is a possibility I suppose. Not something I have tried before but maybe… ah, maybe not on the Warlord Konflict Tesla M4 though as it has a resin turret. Still, not a bad idea for the plastic hull and the regular M4 turret that comes with it. Thanks for the suggestion.

Let me be clear, when I started this thread it was to help me get a handle on modeling vehicles for 28mm gaming. It was to learn from others. It was not to criticize others or drain fun from the hobby. For me part of the fun is getting my game to “look right” to me and I just wanted to save some time and money with lessons learned from others.

[Arjuna]

You're not playing toy soldiers properly, I'm going home!

This is ridiculous.
You always come back, always.
To fight another day.

By the way, I do not play with toy soldiers, I recreate highly detailed and painstakingly tactical and strategical war game simulations.
As I can prove!

Anyone even just slightly familiar with the subject matter will immediately recognize that this is a scene from the south east asian Theatre of War, Battle of Bobdubi, New Guinea, August 1943, I recreated this morning in 1/32 in my own strategical and tactical simulation HQ.
That is, my garden!

Aussi forces assaulting a heavily fortified Japanese position on Bobdubi Ridge.
To be precise, it's the Battle on Dragonstone Hill or 'Doragonsutōn no oka' as the Japanese say.
Rumour has it, that they even built a sacred shrine there, some strange Shinto voodo or something.





See 'ya t'morrow.
And don't forget to bring your Gurkhas.

p.s.
No, I don't know why there is a 1/20 scale model of an ancient greek wine amphora lying around.
And yes, the niche with the shelves on the left side of the picture is a gateway to other dimensions

[Arjuna]

Let me be clear, when I started this thread it was to help me get a handle on modeling vehicles for 28mm gaming. It was to learn from others. It was not to criticize others or drain fun from the hobby. For me part of the fun is getting my game to “look right” to me and I just wanted to save some time and money with lessons learned from others.

Now, let me be clear, Sir!

How dare you to take me serious!
 

These questions have arisen regularly, like sunrise and sunset, since the beginning of time.
I've already bickered about them with my buddies in the sandbox about 50 years ago.
And every 10 to 15 years or so, when I look at it again, they're still there.

I'm just making fun of that.
 

[tin shed gamer]

I agree with Arjuna you shouldn't take us that seriously.
It's something that does crop up from time to time. The only difference is on here you'll get honest points of views with out entrenched egos tearing chunks out of each other.
The most peculiar thing about the issue of scaling is the smaller you go the less it seems to bother people.

You've just got see what your doing as an Art form. As with all art it's subjective and requires experimentation along with experience to find your style.No matter how it's framed you likes what you likes,and nobody can say your wrong .

I could say buy 1/56 it's  the best scale .You could be happy at that .Just as equally you could put a kit together and go WTF.
That's  why I'll always waffle on and vote Other.

[Arjuna]

The only difference is on here you'll get honest points of views with out entrenched egos tearing chunks out of each other.

Which is one of the valuable assets of this forum that seems not to have changed since I left the hobby and the forum about 12/13 years ago.
 

[Grumpy Gnome]

Always hard to “read the room” when it is a virtual room.

I just wanted to be clear in case someone was genuinely getting irked rather than playfully sarcastic.

[Daeothar]

I avoided having to trawl through 4 pages of opinions on the matter, (plus apparently some mild trolling with a humorous slant), but I saw the topic and decided that you all are entitled to my opinion, so here goes:

Most of my historical miniatures are on the heroic side of the scale, so wide, but without the length to make them look 'natural' (a lot are Artizan for instance). This extra hight is provided by the base they're on after all.

So at the end of the day, they all look like pudgy kids on a booster seat, but they do approximately reach the height of a 1/48 figure!

Early on, when doing mostly civilian vehicles in a pulp setting, 1/43 was quite acceptable; vehicles in those days were quite a bit smaller than modern ones, so the exaggerated size next to 28mm miniatures was hardly noticeable. But modern cars are just too large in 1/43, and the lack of militairy vehicles in the scale lead me to realize that 1/43 is not a perfect scale for gaming after all (it was cheap though ).

Which I why I now go with 1/48 or 1/50 vehicles wherever possible. And the arrival of 3D printing capabilities at my house means I can now match potential new additions perfectly. Because next to vehicles scaled as such, my based 28mm heroic miniatures look spot on, both in height and girth, next to my (unbased!) vehicles.

Now, I can understand people who went with realistically proportioned miniatures, such as the Perry's ones, from the start also want their vehicles to match in scale. But they'll have to base their vehicles as well, to make certain their miniatures do not look out of place next to them.

Oh, and another reason for me to go 1/50, is the easy conversion of dimension when building scenery!

[Grumpy Gnome]

OK, I have spent several hours researching this which I probably should have spent painting instead but this is very frustrating. I have searched for and read old several threads on this topic on these forums. Yes, it is an old chestnut that keeps popping up. Sorry if I keep trying to solve an unsolvable issue.

I did find a thread about the 1/50 scale Solido R35 that was helpful.

Does anyone here own both the 1/48 scale New Millennium Toys MB 170V and the 1/43 scale Atlas MB 179V? Are they really two different sized models?

I ordered a 1/43 Atlas Autoblinda to try the size.

The 1/43 Atlas models are so much more affordable here in Germany.

[Cat]

Does anyone here own both the 1/48 scale New Millennium Toys MB 170V and the 1/43 scale Atlas MB 179V? Are they really two different sized models?

I don't know those two particular models, but I would expect them to be quite different sizes.

There is a very big difference in the perception of size between comparing line drawings or photographs and comparing physical models.

The difference in scale area on images is squared.  The difference in physical volume is cubed.

As the French say of any image of a tank, "Ce n'est pas un char."
: 3

[Grumpy Gnome]

You would think they would be two different sizes given one is marketed 1/43 and one is marketed as 1/48 but they look remarkably similar, even down toothed scale proportions of the paint scheme. Pretty identical for two different companies and two different scales.

This reminds me of folks using the 1/72 Zvedza /Revell Medieval Cog for 28mm.

[Arjuna]

Does anyone here own both the 1/48 scale New Millennium Toys MB 170V and the 1/43 scale Atlas MB 179V? Are they really two different sized models?

Probably not and maybe.
I wouldn't trust what is claimed on the packaging for a nanosecond, even if it says so.
 

https://mercedes-benz-publicarchive.com/marsClassic/en/instance/ko.xhtml?oid=4284
The 170 V had a length of 4270mm.
In 1/43 that is 99.3mm and in 1/48 88.9mm.
So there is a difference of roughly one centimeter or about 10%.

In case it is really that important, you may ask here:
https://diecast43wwii.blogspot.com/2013/06/mersedes-170v-de-agostini-classic-armor.html
It doesn't look like the blog is maintained anymore, but maybe you'll get lucky.

Or on one of those diecast forums like this:
https://www.planetdiecast.com/index.php?option=com_kunena&func=showcat&catid=138&Itemid=0

I seem to remember, in my day there was a Larry Leadhead about this.
 

Good luck.
 

[Wyrmalla]

With diecasts mind that the scale on the box may be arbitrary based on what the particular line requires and what re-existing components are available. Where a Company may use the same base chassis for a number of vehicles - regardless if one's a Mini Cooper and another's a long wheel base pickup truck... They may claim something's 1/48th for the sake of fitting in with a range of "1/48th" models - which themselves could be a random assortment of scales.

...Which is to say that I was in a shop today and seen just that. I bought some Volkswagen 181s that're listed as 1/59th scale (which apparently is a scale), despite being larger than the 1/56th Kubelwagen and 1/60th Volkswagen Beetle I have (more so than the real world differences between these vehicles would be). Though hey, if you want a VW 181 for 28mm wargaming I'd highly recommend Mattel's Micromachine model.

To follow on from what others have said based on judging things by eye for what looks right. With the variance in scale between ranges that I've described, finding a commonality in components rather than figures helps. Figures can vary in scale themselves - even with "28mm" - , and it may be surprising how small a hatch a crew on a real world vehicle may be expected to fit into (...as well, those "28mm" tank crews may be a foot shorter than your infantry in the real world). However if you can match up common components like wheels, engine vents, hatches, guns, etc between military models that's one way of establishing common scaling.

I'd tend to use a vehicle that's listed as the appropriate scale, even if it doesn't look "right" to my eye. As things may be smaller than you'd think. Though I have on a few occasions pulled up scale conversions on models that seemed a bit too off to check - and well, as with the diecasts, some miniatures manufacturers can be a bit all over the place with how they proportion their kits in terms of the dimensions of the chassis, etc.

[Wyrmalla]

Oh, and in your case Grumpy Gnome, is whether that car's 1/48th or 1/43rd not kind of moot? Your 28mm figures won't be able to shoot over the bonnet in either case.