Bon dia!
Regarding to this old thread, I've found some balance between fluency and graphical representation for both the players and GM in the way I'm running my games these last two months. First I have downloaded the modern top-down counters of vehicles and soldiers found in the "Junior General" page (the link is in the GM resources thread). I've edited the personnel counters to represent one single soldier in each counter and not two, as usual in a lot of miniature games. Each soldier with a reference number for the GM (the same number I will put in the NPC record forms). Then with the traditional "cut and paste" method, I've produced one DINA4 page for each category of counters. Per example, one page for US soft vehicles, one page for US armoured vehicles, one page for US personnel, one page for "trees and bushes, etc. Then the colour laser printer of office have finished the job, printing over white card. With the help of some of my players we have covered each page in plastic cover (not sure if this is the correct English term) and then we've cut each counter. We use the counters for close-quarter battles, with each centimeter equal to 1 meter.
For all the other cases, we've produced a pair of "portable dry-erase boards"
. Portable was needed because we don't have a fixed place to play. Again using material from my office. We've printed two DINA3 hex-maps and we've bound together with two DINA3 hard-cardboard covers and two DINA3 transparency film pages. The appearance is like a DINA3 sized, spiral-bound notebook, with the hard cardboard at the outside. When one opens this notebook, you have two DINA3 hex maps deployed on the table, covered with transparency film, for use with dry-erase markers. Of course, if we do not need the hex-map, we can put any other map or information needed under the transparency film.
We use the counters for close-range action, and the board for anything else.