"The Panzerkampfwagen VI was Germany’s most important tank during WW2. It remained in mass production throughout the war, and with some 8,000 units produced
I think you mean IV, not VI. The VI was the Tiger. (Hmm, that’s a scary thought: Germany producing 8,000 Tiger tanks rather than 8,000 Panzer IVs….)
After reading a comment by Variable elsewhere on the board (“Who else is building tables out there? I’m sure we’d all like some pics to drool over. Any more “command centers”?”), I thought it might be a good idea to have a dedicated thread which links to existing threads where members have posted pictures of their specialized A&A Global 1940 gaming tables.
I’ve collected the threads of this type which I could find, but I may have missed a few, so feel free to add other links:
Johnnymarr’s Global Gaming Table:
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=18186.0
and
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=20154.0
94Canuck’s Global Gaming Table
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=20291.0
Pelanderfunk’s Global Gaming Setup
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=20365.0
I’ve also provided thread links to a couple of A&A gaming tables which aren’t Global but which are too great-looking to be excluded:
TwistedAries’s AAA Command Center Bunker
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=18426.0
Rorschach’s AA50 3-D Terrain Gaming Table
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=18619.0
This thread could also be a convenient place to post pictures of other Global gaming tables which don’t already have their own threads. To get things started, I’ve posted below three pictures I took last weekend of my own Global setup. The first picture shows the overall layout, which consists of four card tables (the kind with folding legs) arranged in a row, with shelving units and plastic tackle boxes underneath them to hold my collection of plastic sculpts. The game board rests on a raised, cloth-covered rectangular base, and is covered with a sheet of acrylic. The second picture is a close-up of the right side of the table, showing the customized roundels I’ve sandwiched in between the board and the acrylic to replace the default ones printed on the map. The third picture is a close-up of the left side of the table, which is used to map some customized connections between the two board sections that don’t line up when they’re side-by-side. The connections are marked with white sewing thread, which shows up clearly against the black cloth even though it’s very thin.
Neat!
By the way, when I saw the two bottom pictures, I couldn’t help imagining that I was seeing a new type of unit: the flying aircraft carrier. :-)
I understand completely what you’re trying to say about the WotC convention being what it is.
Here’s where I have a concern about it in terms of practicality…
So far, WotC tanks have all been within the same category. It thus didn’t matter if you mixed in, say, the skinny version of the Panther with the wider version or the British Matilda with the British Sherman… A tank was a tank was a tank.
Of course, different countries=different colors, too.
But once we have different types or levels of tank that are the same color, will it be so easy?
Having already experienced the difficulties of using just shape because I’d long been using the (smaller, pre AA40) Stukas as Tac Bombers and bf109’s as fighters, I’m concerned that more differentiation might be helpful once we have multiple tank types, just as WotC radically increased the size of the Stukas once the addition of Tac Bombers became “official.”
Do y’all think the current Stuka/ bf109 difference is too great as well?
(I hope you don’t think I’m being argumentative, I’m just trying to struggle with the dialectic between compatibility/ recognizability thoroughly in the hope that we can find a consensus, so that TT and possibly other future accessory venders will have the clearest possible feedback.)
The Japanese Type 95 was a light tank, not a medium tank like the other A&A tank units. The A&A sculpt for the Type 95 is the shortest one on Reloader’s list (19.5mm long), so it’s at the correct end of the size scale.
The Stuka size increase illustrates the principle that major size differences in A&A sculpts are used to differentiate types of units, not models within a single type. The original A&A Europe game incorrectly used the Stuka in the role of a fighter, even though the aircraft was actually a dive bomber. The Stuka sculpt was, however, in the correct size range of the other fighter units in the original Europe and Pacific games. The later introduction of the Me109 fighter (in Bulge, I think) fixed the problem of having a true fighter in the fighter role. When Pacific 1940 came out, the new Tac Bomber type was introduced and its type size was pegged at midway between the bomber types and the fighter types. Europe 1940 applied this convention to the revised Stuka (now being properly used as a dive bomber) and bumped it up into the Tac Fighter type size range, with the Me109 sculpt continuing to occupy the fighter role (and type size).
I agree that recognizability between units is an important consideration, but one way of looking at the issue is to consider the relationship between the size/shape of a unit and function. Large variations in size and shape can be seen to correspond to large variations in function. To pick some deliberately extreme examples: aircraft sculpts look radically different from ship sculpts, carriers look radically different from submarines, and half-tracks look radically different from tanks. When we narrow the focus to units of broadly similar types, the differences in appearance start to become smaller, but we can still get a fair degree of differentiation: for example we have big strategic bombers, medium tac bombers and small fighters (aircraft with fundamentally different missions).
Things would start to get tricky, however, if we lobbied TT to introduce too large a range of models that are fundamentally of the same type. I’d love to see each nation get its own distinct type of medium tank, and I can see the point of each nation also having one light tank (at or just below the low end of the A&A tank size range) and one heavy tank (at or just above the upper end of the A&A tank size range), but that’s probably as much variety as could be introduced in a practical way. Giving every single country multiple types of medium tanks, for example, would be redundant. Distinguishing their appearance would be as difficult as distinguishing their performance. Even though I’m an avowed piece junkie, I don’t see much practical point in a single country having multiple models of units whose missions and performances are virtually identical. A&A combat rules don’t much take into account the real-world performance differences between a Nation X tank and a Nation Y tank, so the rules would not be well geared towards taking into account the performance differences between multiple models of tanks fielded by Nation X. So a situation in which we were having trouble differentiating on the board between various sculpts might not be telling us that the sizes weren’t chosen properly; it might instead be telling us that we have too great a variety of unit models of the same basic type serving the same basic role.
I agree with Reloader: the A&A convention is for all tanks to be approximately the same size, within a fairly narrow range. The more a non-A&A tank strays outside that range, the more out of place it will look alongside the A&A units. The primary way in which A&A tank models are differentiated is by shape, not by size (with the colour being an additional factors that helps tell units apart).
I think part of the problem we’re noticing here is that board members have different views as to what constitutes a noticeable and/or acceptable size differential between units. For instance, when I look at my A&A and TWG tanks side by side, I find the size difference to be much more striking than Dr Larsen does – strking to the point of rendering the two types incompatible. In fact there are very few TWG units that I find to be fully compatible with the A&A pieces, the destroyer being one of the rare exceptions.
The approach I’d like to see TT use would be to stick as much as possible to the size range of the existing A&A pieces, and to use shape rather than size as the distinguishing factor between models.
I agree that the answer depends on individual preferences and requirements. In my case, I think Global is far and away the best A&A game published to date in terms of the range of sculpts it offers (eight nationalities, including France for the first time, and multiple equipment types for each nation, including the new tac bombers and mech infantry) and in terms of the game board. Of all the commercially-published WWII-style game boards that I own, Global 1940 is the one I like best in terms of its huge size, attractive design, good level of detail and (small qualifier inserted here) reasonable accuracy. I have a few quibbles with the inaccuracies that do exist (things like spelling errors, the national status of some territories, and the fact that the map doesn’t line up properly when you fit together the two halves of North America), but they’re quibbles that I can live with and for which I’ve to some extent compensated by the way I’ve installed the boards on my wargaming table. Overall, I think it’s a game map that looks great and works well, and which is way better than any other published one I’ve seen to date. So I’m very happy to own Global 1940, and I’d feel deprived if I had to go back to pre-Global days.
@Subotai:
When was the time that changed power structures in UK so that the British P.M had more power than kings or queens? 1700? 1750? 1800? 1850?
Because the reduction in royal powers in Britain took place over many centuries, and because Great Britain has an uncodified constitution, it’s hard to point to one specific date. For example, the Magna Carta of 1215 was an early step in the process of placing limits on royal authority. The English Civil War was largely a power struggle between Parliament and King Charles I (who, in a fairly dramatic application of the principle that the authority of the sovereign should be curbed, ended up on the wrong end of an executioner’s axe in 1649). The Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the subsequent Bill of Rights 1689 also contributed greatly to the establishment of parliamentary supremacy in Britain.
Again, we’re getting into the Undefeatable America argument here. I agree with the sentiments of American exceptionalism, but to say that because America entered the war it was a lost cause for the Axis is, I think, a little premature. Yes, the happening of Pearl Harbor on Dec 7 1941 generated one of many possible outcomes for the war. However, I do not believe that the Axis were doomed from that day on. American presence in the European war really didn’t show until at least 1943. And their gains in the Pacific in 1942 had little bearing on the European war.
Richard Overy looks at this whole issue in his book Why The Allies Won. He says that there was nothing inevitable about the Allied victory, and that it’s simplistic to argue that Germany was doomed as soon as it faced the combination of Russia’s huge pool of manpower and America’s vast economic and industrial resources. The Allies had to fight long and hard for their victory, at a great cost in lives and treasure. They had to learn to fight effectively, using proper tactics and proper equipment; they had to define their strategic objectives correctly, and had to learn to work together (particularly in the case of the British and the Americans, who got into some lengthy squabbles over how the war in the west should be conducted); and they had to sustain the morale of their populations through a long, tough war that made exceptional demands on everyone. An Allied victory was by no means assured in 1942, and it would not have happened if the Allies had not learned from their early defeats. And even by 1944, by which point the Allied material advantage had become overwhelming and it was clear that the Allies would certainly win if they maintained their resolve to fight, final victory still depended on the Allies maintaining that determination – on their willingness to stick to the job to the bitter end, and to accept nothing short of the unconditional surrender they had defined as the only acceptable outcome.
I assume the meaning of your question is whether, in the late 18th and early 19th century, the Prime Minister of Great Britain had more political power than the King. The answer is yes. At that time (and as is still true today), the job of the King (or Queen) was to reign but not to rule. He was the head of state, but not the head of the government. The head of government was the Prime Minister, and it was with the P.M. (and with Parliament in general) that political power mostly rested. British sovereigns do have a certain number of “reserve powers,” but these rarely get used except in constitutional crises. (If you’re interested in a Canadian example of the use of these reserve powers, check the Wikipedia entry on the King-Byng Affair.)
Very nice setup! Probably a better war room than what some of the real generals of the actual minor neutral powers had in 1939 (including the beer-holding capacity)!
@Table:
I tried telling them that I’m a good guy and just cut me a check but that didn’t work.
Mussolini used to brag that he could call upon “8 million bayonets”. Would it help if you told your money guys that you have (by today’s count) the backing of 10,545 A&A.org board members?
It’s a good thing that developing techs in A&A is simpler than it is in the real world, as we can see here:
http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/dangerroom/2010/09/atl_wall_chart.jpg
I especially like the note in the top right corner which says that there are additional activities not shown in the chart.
I agree that upgrading is a good idea, but I would also add this: hang on to your classic game too. Having extra pieces is a good thing – you can never have too many pieces – and having shape and colour variants in your collection can turn out to be very useful…for instance, by having one colour of a country’s infantry sculpts represent standard troops and another colour represent elite troops.
Simply beautiful and you’re clearly a fan with friends, but where are the coasters or cup holders?
I think that drinks should be kept across the room from A&A boards in general, and in an entirely different room from gaming tables as nice as this one. Just one spill could be catastrophic.
Very good-looking table! The stained wood frame is an especially nice touch.
Now you have made an interesting comment there. Would the U.S. have ever used nukes in heavily populated Europe? That is something that deserves some deep thought.
In 1945, the effects of radioactive fallout were not well understood, and the only nuclear weapons available were kiloton-range fission bombs rather than megaton-range thermonuclear bombs. So my guess is that a nuclear strike against, say, Berlin, would have been seen as just that: as a bombing attack against an enemy city whose direct blast effects would have been highly localized, and whose downwind radiological effects would not have been given much consideration. Even in early postwar atomic tests, the radiological dangers to the scientists and troops who observed nuclear blasts and who then went to the explosion site to conduct tests were not taken as seriously as they would be today.
Yes, but geographically speaking would it not have been easier to liberate Norway, establish a base then invade Germany through an amphibious assault to the North? Instead of traveling through inland France? Its just something that I’ve always wondered.
This kind of operation would have required three steps: 1) Launching an amphibious invasion of western Norway from northern England or Scotland, a minimum sea distance of 300 miles ; 2) Marching these forces overland through Norway, a country consisting almost entirely of mountains; 3) Launching the repositioned forces on a second amphibious assault from either southern Norway to Denmark or, if one were willing to violate Swedish neutrality, from Sweden to Germany. By contrast, Overlord was launched from southern England (reasonably flat country in the most heavily populated area of England) across the English Channel (over a distance of about 50 miles), landing in Normany (on flat beaches) and marching to Germany across France (another reasonably flat country). I think the geography favours the way the option the Allies chose to use.
I’m drawing a blank, annoying as I’m usually good with WW2 history, but what would Italy’s “proper” roundels look like?
The flank and wing roundels can be seen here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regia_Aeronautica
No self respecting history buff would use the Allied Italian roundels supplied with the game; download some correct Axis Fasces roundels for Italy and print out as many as you need.
My feelings exactly. While waiting for Europe 1940 to come out, I spent the summer making myself a total of about 800 roundels, which I laser-printed in colour on full-sheet sticky label paper and stuck onto white plastic bingo chips. I allocated about 40 bingo chips to Italy, and used the Regia Aeronautica fasces roundel for the design. In addition to making a bunch of French tricolour roundels like the ones supplied with the game, I also made some Vichy and Free French roundels and even a small number of Communist Chinese roundels in case I ever wanted to distinguish Mao’s forces from the Nationalist Chinese ones.
I suppose that the Alllies didn’t invade Norway for the same reason that they didn’t invade quite a number of Japanese-held territories in the Pacific: because doing so wasn’t essential, and that a better use of their forces was to concentrate on the objective of knocking Germany out of the war as quickly as possible. Liberating France was an essential preliminary to invading Germany itself; liberating Norway wasn’t. Defeating Germany liberated Norway without the need for the direct invasion of Norway; liberating Norway, on the other hand, would not have brought about Germany’s surrender, so concentrating on Germany was the more effective option. Similarly, in the Pacific, the Americans concentrated on capturing only the islands that were vital to achieving the twin goals of liberating the Philippines and putting mainland Japan into range of their strategic bomber forces. They ignored the Japanese-occupied Dutch East Indies for that reason, and also because cutting off Japan from its supplies of raw materials from the DEIs could be done more easily by attacking Japanese convoys than by invading the DEIs.