Auckland Wargaming Club

Combat Tanks Collection Magazine from the UK is now available here in NZ - you can subscribe on line or pick it up from Whitcoulls or similar book stores. Each issue includes a 1/72nd Scale Die-Cast Model similar to those produced by Dragon Armor; Forces of Valor; and similar. The magazine covers World War II and more Modern Vehicles. This is a great way to get some good quality models for Wargaming World War II & Modern conflicts in 1/72nd (20mm) scale. Issues cost NZ$19.95 each so you get the model for half or less what a Dragon Armor or FoV model would cost; albeit the models aren't quite the same quality as the latter 2 manufacturers (e.g. no weathering effects). The publication has been running for about 24 months in the UK and over 12 months in Australia with 2 issues normally coming out each month. The following is an approximate list of what models have in been each issue in the UK...

An assortment of Modern Era Soviet forces from the collection of Kieran Mahony:

sig-gal/modern01

Periods are the "Eras" or "Level of Technology" present for wargaming. Having a Greek Army of 300 BC facing a Russian Army of 1944 AD is obviously quite a mismatch and both armies need quite different sets of rules to control how they perform. Hence we have "Periods" in which armies all operated in similar ways, or with similar weapons, and can be 'played' using a common set of rules.

Last year, 1995, the United States Marine Corps began trials of a modified LVTP7 amphibious APC with a rather interesting Power plant; A gas turbine-driven electric generator of some 750 thousand watts of power production. Electric current from this generator drives two engines on the tracks and two aquajet water drives, replacing the Diesel engine and standard Hamilton Jets. Even including the mass of the complex cooling fans required for the gas turbine, the weight is precisely the same as what has been removed, and in fact the situation for the engine now becomes more flexible; the lighter fuel storage system required has improved the performance of the vehicle by around ten percent in speed.

This is a vindication of the 1990 study by the US Department of Defence that predicted the day of the “ All-Electric Tank “ was within sight; An armoured fighting vehicle in which locomotion, weapons and defences are driven by electricity. This is not Sci-Fi, in the sense of ray-guns, but Science Fiction that becomes Science Fact, and it has some very interesting effects on wargaming.