I decided to make some national reference cards for the Global40 game to help new players who joined in on my games. Basically I used PowerPoint to put as much relevant information onto the cards as possible, so they may not look as polished as some people may make them on these forums. I wanted to share these however if anyone is interested. I think I do not have enough posts yet though so I cannot post a hyperlink for people to download them. If anyone is interested ask me and I can send the google docs link so you can take a look.

I personally like to keep with the idea of allowing each nation to have the possibility to access each of the new units, because Even Japan and Italy had some heavier tank designs and prototypes, but they just never had the production to actually put them into full production. With the research system proposed however it does accomplish your goal to an extent. Since each research would be 4 stages to progress through, if a country has no bonus to what stage they start on it can take quite a few turns and money to get some researches especially if one has to roll a 6 or a 5+ with one die to progress one stage. Italy does not have the money to spare, and Japan probably wants to spend more money on ships and taking islands and tank upgrades wont suit them unless they are trying to crush Russia. I could also add another research of mass production which the US, and probably Russia has a bonus in, and it will reduce the cost of all of their units by one IPC.

You can find some good light tank pieces on Historical Board Gaming, they are about 0.65 cents per piece

Thanks for the inputs I think I will go with the advanced mediums, and I am currently taking a look at the board to see how some of these could be included in the starting setup

Thank you for the response they are good inputs. I think I will go with the A2 D3 heavy tanks with an upgrade to A3 D4 with research.

For Mediums, Has there been a good House rule proposed that can represent the upgrades they received throughout the war? I can keep the Base Medium at A3 D3, but say upgrading them to A4 with the Advanced armament research would make Germany more of a beast to deal with than it is already.

The only way so far I have seen on the forums is a proposal for Advanced Mediums with a C7. One way I think it could be implemented would be allowing the player to upgrade any mediums already on the board for 1 IPC, or just buy it for 7. This would require another tank sculpt or marker to represent the difference, and I do not want to make the rules too complicated for someone to understand.

With all the different unit types on the HBG site I have been thinking about how they could be implemented in a balanced and historically accurate way. I have seen a few threads on addition of different types of tanks and other mobile units and I wanted to consolidate my ideas into one area so people could look at it and see how viable each addition would be and any ways to improve on them.  The units added would be SP artillery, Light/med/Heavy tanks, and rocket artillery, with the addition of two new researches of heavy tanks, advanced tank armament and modify the current advanced artillery research

SP Artillery
M2 A2 D2 C5
Can blitz when combined with Mech infantry and tanks.
Upgrades infantry/Mech infantry to A2

This would Simply be mobile artillery that can keep up with the Tanks and Mechs

Rocket Artillery
M2 A1 D1 C5
Cannot blitz
Rolls two dice per attack
First Strike

Rolling two dice for rocket artillery would represent the large volume of rockets fired at once, but they are rather inaccurate since the A1 and D1, but since these are usually used before the battle starts over an area giving them a first strike would allow them to soften up the defenders/attackers before the combat begins. Most of them were on mobile systems which is represented by M2

Light Tanks

M2 A2 D1 C4
Can Blitz
Mech infantry can blitz with Light tanks
Can be used for Tac bombers Combined arms

This would be the reverse of Mech infantry. Light tanks were usually fast and could maneuver well, but not so good in a defensive situation. This would provide a cheap mobile attack unit for many of the smaller nations, but they would be very vulnerable to counterattacks

Med Tanks
M2 M3 D2 C6
Basically the original Axis and allies tanks

I thought about reducing the cost to 5 but I did not want it to conflict with SP artillery, plus a research will improve them. The strength of medium tanks was again in their maneuverability on the attack with better armor than light tanks, and many of the earlier ones did not have the better guns we saw later in the war

Heavy Tanks
M2 A3 D3 C8
Cannot Blitz
2 Hits

Early heavy tanks like the KV, Char, and Churchills did not have the powerful at guns we saw later in the war with the Tigers, Pershings, and IS tanks. Heavy tanks are slow ant not as maneuverable, and I wanted to gear them more toward defensive strength

R&D system

From looking at the Global War games on HBG I thought the R&D for that game would work best for adding these types of units.
The player would choose a research and pay 2 IPCs per roll and have to get a certain number or higher on a 6 or 12 sided die and then would progress through multiple stages of research. The number required would depend on the impact that that research would have one the game. i.e war bonds would be a 4 or higher per stage and jet fighters would require a 6 per stage. The research system I see as crucial to adding these units as it allows some historical accuracy as to when units come into play and how effective they are throughout the game.

Modified R&D

Advanced artillery
Would require a 5 or higher on each stage of research
In addition to the original changes, it would allow players to build SP artillery and Rocket artillery

New R&D

Heavy Tanks
Would require a 5 or higher per stage
Allows players to build Heavy tanks
Another thought is to have Russia and France start with that Tech and have Germany and Britian one or two stages in at the start of the game due to the historical accuracy of when those countries deployed these units

Advanced Tank Armament
Require 5 or higher per stage
Upgrades defense of Med tanks to D3 and Heavy tanks to D4
Germany starts the game at stage one for this R&D
This represents the upgrade to the Sherman 76/Firefly, T-34/85, and Panzer IV/ Panther tanks as well as the upgrade to KV-85/IS-2 heavy tanks

With the research bonuses Germany should get Heavy tanks about the same time as Advanced armament. If it does not there is a slightly historically inaccuracy of the tiger not being as effective as it should be.

The addition of these new units would most likely call for a slightly modified starting setup. Particularly adding more light tanks to the initial setup for Germany/Japan/Italy, and maybe one heavy tank for Russia