Maths Problem

[fsn]

I have quite a drive home and so my mind tends to roam. I was pondering how long a battallion of 600 rank and file in 2 ranks would actually take up if modelled in Pendraken miniatures at 1:1.

Given each man takes up 24" (2'), 300 men in a rank.

A 10mm Pendraken figure represents a 6' tall man therefore figures should be packed 3 per 10mm wide base, so a rank would need 100 bases.  The whole line would be 100 x 10mm = 1m.

Going the other way, 300 men at 2' each is 600'. Divide that by 150, we get 4' or 1.21m.

I know I have an assumption wrong, but where? 

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

What's height got to do with it?

[fred.]

The second method is he better one.

In the first one you are approximating that 10mm = 6 feet.
At 1/150th scale 6 feet = 12mm

I'm not sure Pendraken figures are 10mm tall, nor that they are meant to represent 6' tall men.


So, 300 figures on a 1210mm frontage, gives 4mm per figure, so 10 across a typical 40mm width base. Which is quite a squeeze. And would be 30 of these bases. Which really does indicate that the foot print of most wargames units is very wrong. Thinking of Warmaster where a unit in line was 120mm wide, and 2 ranks, deep, this seem quite a long unit. But this is 1/10th of the above.

[steve_holmes_11]

I wasn't sure where you'd got 150 form for your second calculation.
Now I see it's 1/150th scale.

If your 10mm figure is 10mm tall to the top of his head (That's a big IF).
Then your scale would me 10 / 1828.8 (Near as dammit to 1/180).

That explains why your resulting frontages aren't the same.
Was that the question?

[Techno]

No, no, no, no, no.

"10mm" figures are 10mm to the eyes.....If they're standing bolt upright.....12mm to the top of a bald head.

That's what I work to. 

(Apart from the Fantasy figures......they're a couple of mm taller.)

Cheers - Phil

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

That's what I work to. 

Phil - Work

[Norm]

At 1:1  representation, then ground scale doesn't matter for purposes of the calculation, it is the physical size of the actual figure footprint that matters. It is specifically how much real room do 300 10mm chaps take up compared to 300 real soldiers.

So if a 600 man battalion, double ranked to 300 per rank, needs a frontage of 2 foot per man, then real life frontage is 600 feet.

so if you base 300 x 10mm chaps side by side, whatever that comes out as is the 1:1 scaling of a battalion.

I have 5 napoleonics on a 40mm base (I suppose it should be five and a half really or even 6 for a should to shoulder look, but never mind), so 60 such bases would give me a 1:1 scaling with a battalion, as 60 bases each with 5 lots of 10mm men will give 300 lead men.

60 bases x 40mm frontage (eek!) = 2400mm, converted back to feet is (eek again!) 8 foot.

So a real battalion frontage of 600 feet can be represented at 1:1 by an 8 foot base of Pendraken 10mm double ranked.

of course I could be wrong  

[Norm]

sorry I ended up quoting myself in a second post! all that maths must have exhausted me!

[fred.]

At 1:1  representation, then ground scale doesn't matter for purposes of the calculation, it is the physical size of the actual figure footprint that matters. It is specifically how much real room do 300 10mm chaps take up compared to 300 real soldiers.
...
So a real battalion frontage of 600 feet can be represented at 1:1 by an 8 foot base of Pendraken 10mm double ranked.

That is certainly one way of looking at it, but I think it highlights the differences in proportion of wargames figures vs real people. The 1/150th scale isn't just a ground scale thing, it is the scale representation of the models, which can be applied to all dimensions. So I do think dividing the 600' by 150 is the most accurate representation. Then it is actually trying to fit 300 model figures into that space. 2' spacing feels close, but if this is for troops firing, so side on, it feels a reasonable amount of space. But I don't think I've ever seen 10 x 10mm figures on a 40mm frontage. I think 7 or 8 is the most, and this includes Warmaster figures cast on strips.

[fsn]

"10mm" figures are 10mm to the eyes.....If they're standing bolt upright.....12mm to the top of a bald head.

That sorts it!  12mm x 100 bases = 1.2m.

Huzzah!

Thanks Techno.

[Westmarcher]

The question is, "how long a battalion of 600 rank and file in 2 ranks would actually take up if modelled in Pendraken miniatures at 1:1." What nationality? I assume British because you state 2 ranks. If so, a British battalion usually consisted of 10 companies. In each company, the men were arrayed in 2 ranks with an officer and a sergeant at the sides. Therefore if modelling 600 rank and file in 2 ranks, you'll have to increase the width of the battalion to take account of the officers and sergeants in the front and rear ranks (there were also of course more sergeants and officers as supernumeraries at the rear of the battalion).    

In The Waterloo Companion by Mark Adkins, there is an example of a battalion in line, the 2/30th (Cambridgshire). His diagram of the unit in line not only shows the rank & file and the officers and sergeants beside each company but also a Colour Party of 8 men in 2 ranks in the middle of the line. So basically, when you say how long (i.e., what width) the battalion would take up you've got to take the other ranks and not only the "rank and file" into account.  He uses a width of approximately 60 cm per man which roughly equates to the 2 feet previously mentioned.

He gives the strength of 2/30th as 640 all ranks (512 soldiers) but then lists 8 non-combatant personnel (3 surgeons, 2 paymasters, 2 quartermasters and an armourer) who are 'on duty in the rear.' For the remaining 632, he gives the battalion frontage as 210 metres which he says is based on a front rank of 'approximately 300 men.' But 300 x 60cm is only 180 metres so that means there must be gaps between companies and the Colour Party. If so, how wide are the gaps between each company (and the Colour Party)?

So basically, I would just chuck it.  

p.s. I don't know how wide a Pendraken British Napoleonic figure in March Attack pose is but I do know 4 Pendraken Prussian SYW figures in March Attack pose can be squeezed into a 1 inch wide base so, with 10 companies of 60 rank & file, 20 Officers and Sergeants and a Colour Party of 8 deployed in 2 ranks, I would guess the answer is close to 77.5 inches if you exclude the Colour Party from the line, 78.5 inches if you include it.  

[Last Hussar]

The average height of a man in the 800 years to 1945 was 5'7

Pendraken figs are 11mm.

And anyone who measures to the eyes is a loony

[steve_holmes_11]

I'm still not convinced I've grasped the initial question, if indeed there is an initial question.

True ground scale suffers the same sort of problems as Literal interpretation of cover - popular in some of the skirmish games beloved of today's youngsters.
The problems is that our small soldiers have fixed poses and stand upon bases, usually substantial enough to keep them upright.

For the battalion frontage issue this is a problem, since a 2' wide base is a bit too thin to be stable for a man standing upright.
(I know there's a manufacturer downriver form the smoke who have other opinions).
So you generally can't squash and many models into close formation as you could real proper flexible humans.
This isn't only a post-gunpowder issue, various ancient phalanxes specified an extra close formation with the men squashed so close there's barely a gap.
(Hey, they're Hellenistics, they're used to that man to man contact).

For literal cover, your soldier is stick in the pose he's cast in.
It seems palpable bollocks to me to say that the standing model isn't in cover behind that wall, when the kneeling model is.
Daniel Mersey, or his co-author Michael Leck put it very well "Real soldiers find it far easier to hide than your tabletop equivalents - so give troops the benefit of the doubt when it comes to cover.

[steve_holmes_11]

The average height of a man in the 800 years to 1945 was 5'7

Pendraken figs are 11mm.

And anyone who measures to the eyes is a loony

I can see its value when there are so many different styles and heights of hat.
It's quite a challenge when converting between size and scale.
Also inconvenient if casting a range of frog people.

[Last Hussar]

Distance eyes to crown is 4"/10cm. That's less than a mm on Pendraken figure.