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Just wondering if anyone could tell me what scale these tanks are, and also where I could get some more of the same size:



Edit - http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/658156-Tank%20scale%3F.html

Cheers!

Probably 15mm scale. You can get them from lots of companies and stores. Flames of War, Plastic Soldier Company etc etc.

EDIT. Did some more looking around, I retract my suggestion of 15mm. They're smaller than that. I think the other folks here are correct that they are likely 1/144

If they are Japanese they are probably 1:144

Although they also have 1:100 collect-able tanks

I could be wrong, but they look smaller than 1:100 or 15mm. I don't have any of those tanks in 15mm (on my "to buy" list ) but a 15mm Tiger should be about as tall as a Space Marine (including the Marine's base).

So I'm going to say 1/144.

If you can measure some of the dimensions of one of more of the tanks then we can probably get a better idea. The Panther should be about 6 and a half centimeters long and a bit over 3cm wide for it to be 15mm.

Cheers for all the replies guys!

I think 15mm is pretty close (having watched some videos on youtube!) but i'm not sure it is exactly the same, as they seem too small to fit a 15mm guy in imo...

Measurements are in cm, l, h, w:
Tiger 4.5, 2.0, 3.0
Panzer 5.0, 2.0, 2.5
Jagdpanther 4.0, 1.5, 2.0

Will look at 1/144 now.

Thanks!

Those dimensions are closest to 1/144. A 1/144 Tiger should be 4.4cm long not including the gun and 2.1cm tall.

Yeah, I rounded so those measurements are correct, thanks (btw do you have a model AllSeeingSkink, or did you work that out by dividing the real dimensions of the life size tank? Just wondering ).

Also, I looked on eBay for 1/144 tanks and it came up with some I already have, so now I know it is the right scale!

Will probs be getting some more soon, as I am currently writing up a fun and simple ruleset for miniature tanks...

Thanks for the help!

I have some of those as well, they're from Dragon's Micro Armour range, 1:144

Captain Galenus wrote:
Yeah, I rounded so those measurements are correct, thanks (btw do you have a model AllSeeingSkink, or did you work that out by dividing the real dimensions of the life size tank? Just wondering ).

I don't have any 1/144 tanks, I could just see from your picture they were too small to be 15mm, so I calculated what they should be if they were 1/144 based on the actual tank dimensions

@BrookM - Cool, do you know a place other than ebay to bet them from. I've checked out their website but they don't seem to sell the models on it. Btw the models are very nice and i've got my eyes on some more...

Good ol' maths eh?

I would try far eastern model sellers such as Hobby Link Japan, Lucky Model (Hong Kong), http://www.1999.co.jp, and similar.

Though if they are sold out and OOP it may be impossible to find them.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I would try far eastern model sellers such as Hobby Link Japan, Lucky Model (Hong Kong), http://www.1999.co.jp, and similar.

Though if they are sold out and OOP it may be impossible to find them.

Except in gachapon shops in Japan where you can buy complete sets or separate ones. (these tanks are bought in boxes and you never know which one you get, there are shops that buy up the the ones you don't want and sell them in their shop, ones that are not rare go from 1 or 2 dollars to the super rare that can sell for 20 dollars)

I went a bit overboard when these models first came out...

The quality of the painting is quite impressive...

There's also the DML Dragon Armor prepaints that aren't necessarily as robust as we'd like for wargaming, but are very decently priced given the quality of the models and the painting.
http://www.dragon-models.com/d-m-list.asp?sid=51

They're 1:72 scale, which translates roughly as 20mm.

 Azazelx wrote:
There's also the DML Dragon Armor prepaints that aren't necessarily as robust as we'd like for wargaming, but are very decently priced given the quality of the models and the painting.
http://www.dragon-models.com/d-m-list.asp?sid=51

They're 1:72 scale, which translates roughly as 20mm.

If the OP like's those, there's alot of other minis (plastic and metal) and vehicles in that scale as well.

yeah, those are way smaller than 15mm.

A 15mm tiger should be larger than a space marine by a good margin.

Thanks for all these great replies! Now there is too much choice...

I have looked at various shops etc. but am yet to buy anything as European shipping has been an issue.

I do like 1/72 scale, and have some stuff, but I think it may be a bit too big for actual gaming purposes for myself, especially as they would be more expensive to get in the large quantities that I'd use.

I'm not sure what's available in prepainted stuff at 1/72, but if you don't mind painting them yourself Plastic Soldier Company have a few 1/72 models that are pretty cheap.

2 Panthers for 15 quid, 3 StuG's or 3 Panzer IV/III's for 15 quid. There's also zvezda Tigers, 3 for 22 quid.

Though the range isn't huge.

Also, consider that if you want to use them for wargamning, 1/44 (close to 10mm) is not a common ww2 scale. 1/72 (aprox 20mm) and 1/100 (aprox 15mm) are much more common and there are lots of infantry available in either scale.

Really, 1/72 isn't very expensive. Lots of plastic kits in the $7-$10 range, and plastic infantry is available in boxes of 50 for $4-10 from many manufacturers.

Head to any of the major online hobby outlets and search by scale and you'll see a HUGE selection and prices that are in many times much cheaper than 1/144

 Eilif wrote:
plastic infantry is available in boxes of 50 for $4-10 from many manufacturers.

One thing to watch out with 1/72 plastic infantry is that a lot of the cheaper stuff is soft plastic. Soft plastic is terrible to work with unless you just intend to use them unpainted like green army men.

PSC stuff is better, but doesn't have a huge range.

But it depends what you want to do, if you just want to have big tank battles, 1/144 is probably good because you can use a more realistically sized table. If you want to include more infantry and stuff, I'd probably move to 15mm so that you can use Flames of War and PSC models. If you want to do smaller scale skirmish stuff with only a few tanks and a few squads of infantry, 1/72 is good. If you want to do really small scale skirmish, with maybe only 1 or 2 tanks and a couple of squads of infantry, 28mm is good.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Eilif wrote:
plastic infantry is available in boxes of 50 for $4-10 from many manufacturers.

One thing to watch out with 1/72 plastic infantry is that a lot of the cheaper stuff is soft plastic. Soft plastic is terrible to work with unless you just intend to use them unpainted like green army men.

PSC stuff is better, but doesn't have a huge range.

But it depends what you want to do, if you just want to have big tank battles, 1/144 is probably good because you can use a more realistically sized table. If you want to include more infantry and stuff, I'd probably move to 15mm so that you can use Flames of War and PSC models. If you want to do smaller scale skirmish stuff with only a few tanks and a few squads of infantry, 1/72 is good. If you want to do really small scale skirmish, with maybe only 1 or 2 tanks and a couple of squads of infantry, 28mm is good.

Yes and no…

Soft plastic is not ideal, but the advent of plastic-bonding spray paints such as Krylon Fusion (the Camo line has "fusion tech") have made these miniatures much easier to paint and the paintjobs much more durable. Certainly much better than the old methods of painting your models with PVA or having to find someone locally selling plasticote spray.

1/144 might work for big tank-only battles, but if it's big battles (Battallion to Brigade level) that you want, then you'd probably be better served by 6mm (1/285 or 1/300) which is a commonly accepted scale where you'll find many more models (including infantry) and more opponents. Basically, you can game with 1/144, but it's not really a scale that is well supported for ground combat. 1/144 tanks mostly exist for collectors.

Now if you want to do air combat, then 1/144 may be ideal, but that's a whole other game.

When I said soft plastic was terrible, I didn't just mean painting it. I also meant just generally working with it. The 1/72 infantry kits I've bought all had terrible mould lines that are damned near impossible to remove. You can't scrape or sand them, you can't cut them (you just end up gouging the model). You can melt away the lines but this is massively time consuming to do if you want to do it right. When you get a large mould line on a thin gun barrel (which you so often do) removing it without destroying the gun is a nightmare.

I think 1/144 is fine if you just want to play with a bunch of cheap prepainted tanks and that's all you want to do. Sometimes you just want to buy a few boxes of models and play some games instead of investing a year in to making an actual army and I think 1/144 is fine for that, as long as you realise other scales do exist as options as well.

Why not add 12mm metal infantry with the prepainted tanks? There's a surprising amount of stuff available that's close enough to 1/144.

Also: 1/72 definitely has it's own challenges. It's definitely gotten a lot better than when I first got some of them. I haven't had to remove any mould lines from my HaT stuff, my Caesar stuff or my Zvezda stuff. They're there, but hardly noticable even after a wash.

EDIT: See in the post below for pictures. Yes, there's mould lines, but not ones noticable at gaming distance unless you look for them or have them pointed out.

 frozenwastes wrote:
I haven't had to remove any mould lines from my HaT stuff, my Caesar stuff or my Zvezda stuff. They're there, but hardly noticable even after a wash.

As long as you stay away from soft plastic it's not too bad I think or if you get lucky and have soft plastic that doesn't have mould lines.

HaT is very, very soft. Caeser is pretty soft as well. Zvezda's larger figure count kits are also soft plastic (though their new tiny kits are hard styrene)

And I'm not saying no mould lines. I'm saying ones that you don't see, even when a wash is involved, unless you intentionally look for them.

Revell though, I've found to be terrible. Consistently bad mould lines that destroy detail.

I'm okay with the notion that you have higher standards than me. It's totally possible that mould lines that don't bother me would drive you mad. Here's a cell phone shot of a HaT Sumerian Chariot I painted:



You can see some mould lines on the wheels, an imperfection on the front of the chariot body, and a mould line on the arm and helmet of one of the soldiers. There's also an imperfection on one of the horses's back. None of these are visible during a game on the table though. At least I don't see them at that distance, and I know what to look for. Here's an unflattering close up that really shows the mould line on the spearman:



Mould lines? Yes. How bad they are? Each person needs to make that call personally. i also should have dusted this miniature first He's got fuzzies from dust. The chariot was on my desk rather than in my display cabinet.

I also got lazy and used a test base I made rather than texturing the animals into the base properly. The flock hides the bad transition more in person than it does in the pictures. Though I might go back and touch it up with some grit. I also should go back and add reins between the driver and the empty holes in the cross piece.

EDIT:If you want to see what it looks like at "actual size" zoom out your browser until the chariot base is 80mm across.

---

Ah ok, I thought zvezda was harder plastic and I didn't know about HaT and Ceasar.

I've only bought Italeri and Airfix stuff so far. The mould lines weren't bad when viewed from a distance, but they're bad enough that I am not going to spend the time and effort to paint them and removing them is way too time consuming.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Ah ok, I thought zvezda was harder plastic and I didn't know about HaT and Ceasar.

I've only bought Italeri and Airfix stuff so far. The mould lines weren't bad when viewed from a distance, but they're bad enough that I am not going to spend the time and effort to paint them and removing them is way too time consuming.

That's totally fair. As you see, I just block painted them, washed them with future/ink and then did the occasional clean up and black lining. I consider 1/72 super cheap gaming miniatures to be speed painted.

I've gotten Italeri in the past and have been a bit disappointed (though their repackaged Zvezda stuff is fine). Airfix I consider to be one of the weakest 1/72 providers. Their stuff looks much, much better in 1:32/54mm, but if someone wants to go that bag, I'd recommend Tamiya 1/35 (which are a nice hard plastic):



Much too big for the 1/144 tanks in this thread, but there's lots of 1/35 tanks they're meant to go with.

Some metal 12mm miniatures to use with the tanks:



http://www.miniaturefigurines.co.uk/Catalogue.aspx?ScaleID=1&CategoryID=1

Thanks for that, I wasn't aware of 12mm infantry. They would be a good match for 1/144. If you really like the 1/144 tanks, then that is a good option. Though if starting from scratch, I'd definitely recommend 6mm if only for the massive selection that you'd have to choose from.