Tank spacing, and Using cm, not inches in MSH

[Last Hussar]

Good afternoon gentlemen.

My Moderns are based 1 tank on 30mm square.

Modern Spearhead, being Murican, uses 'Freedom units' of 1 inch = 100 Yards.

If I was to read it as 1cm = 100m it would make the table 2.5 times bigger on each axis.  this puts a tank platoon in a 300 meter box, not 125 Yards.

Did a bit of Binging, and stuff seems to suggest that tank spacing should be about every 100m, which makes the 300 x 300 meter base look reasonable.

Thoughts?

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Sounds about right in open country, less space between vehicles in close terrain. Basically no vehicle wii be out of visiblity of another  and vehicles move bound by bound. Soviet style armies do this by company, NATO ones by platoon.

[fred.]

Feels fine

I think you would have to accept edge to edge bases in some situations. 

Your 3 tanks are likely deployed in a triangular formation rather than linearly so will take up some of the 300mx300m area, rather than all of it which the original ground scale suggests. 

Also for infantry in urban terrain you could have a much higher density of troops than your bases areas would suggest. But this is often an issue if you look too closely at base area, representative scale and ground scale. 

[Last Hussar]

It's primarily a way to have a bigger table, without having to actually a bigger table, as it were. Just wondering if it makes sense.

[fred.]

The other thing you need to be aware of in going from inches to cms - is that when you are measuring in inches, little accidental bumps of figures have little impact on ranges and distances, when you convert to cms a little nudge is now quite a bit of a move.

Perhaps less of an impact with moderns with generally longer ranges and moves. 

[paulr]

Another approach I've seen used is to use 1" = 150 yards i.e. multiply all distances by 2/3 and update your QRS and Data Cards