Comparing 6mm Ship Scales

12/19/2013

Back in 2012 I was gearing up for a big Shiloh anniversary game and found myself wondering what scale ships to buy to go along with my 6mm troops. The USS Tyler and Lexington famously cruised the river during the battle, lobbing shells at the oncoming Confederates as Johnston's army neared Pittsburgh Landing. The actual effect of the Union gunboats remains debatable, but any war-gamer worth his salt wants to have them on the table!

And like any respectable gamer, I knew the only solution was to buy models in two scales--1/600 and 1/1200. I've posted a picture gallery here to compare the two scales. My 1/600 ships are gorgeous sculpts from Thoroughbred, while the much smaller 1/1200 models are Houston's ships, distributed by Stone Mountain. You're free to judge for yourself, but in a 6mm grand tactical game, I much prefer the size of the Houston ships. For exclusive Ironclad gaming (our club enjoys Peter Pig's "Hammerin' Iron" rules), we love using Thoroughbred. Click on any photo in the gallery below to expand into a larger image!

6 Comments

Mitchell

12/19/2013 05:32:57 am

I just ordered some 1/600 scale ships from BAY YARD before seeing this post. I was going along with your idea of using 3mm (1/600 scale buildings) so I thought the same for the vessels. Can you expand upon why you prefer the 1/1200 scale ships? Thanks, Mitch

GRW

12/20/2013 03:54:27 am

I like the smaller ships, because on the tabletop they're supposed to represent a single ship at 1:1 scale, while my 6mm brigades are representing over a thousand men. Obviously it's a matter of personal preference, but visually I feel like the ships should be smaller for the same reasons I prefer 3mm buildings.

If I were using a set of rules with a different figure scale--perhaps my 6mm base of infantry represented only a company of men--then I'd go with the larger 1/600 Thoroughbred ships. Haha...I don't know if my logic makes sense, but that's just me.

Stacey Fake

3/28/2014 02:15:26 am

I agree with your idea about using the smaller ships becaus of the scale of the game.

Not everyone however sees it that way.

A few years ago, long before AoF came out, I bought two miniatures of the gun boats for the Shiloh Fire and Fury scenario. I use 6mm for that as well. The person manning the vendor booth at the convention (I forget which vendor, and which of HMGS's three conventions it was) was very indignant when I said I was using the smaller scale ships with 6mm figures. He insisted that the larger ships were "correct for 6mm figures."

Like you said, when those 6mm figure stands equal a company, he was right, but also, like you said, when you look at the ground scale of the game (60 yards to the inch in F&F, 150 yards to the inch in AoF) then the smaller ships are definately the way to go. The BIG ships look too out of place at those ground scales.

Andy Fuller

4/25/2014 01:49:06 am

Found my old 1/1200 USS Tyler which can now be put to good use.

Adam link

2/24/2018 08:13:20 am

Thank you for this post, it really helped me figure out the right size of ships I was looking for. But I wanted to know where you got your bases at? I would love to do the same thing with clear bases.

Elliott link

12/25/2020 05:51:51 am

Hi great readiing your blog

Comparing 6mm Ship Scales

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