Terminology…

[Mike]

I am often known to moan about grammar, less vs. fewer and such like.
I am far from an expert on the subject, as reading half the stuff I write will show you.

But I am wondering about scale vs. size vs. ratio.

6mm is say 1/300th or 1/285th as is commonly accepted.
With my Angel Barracks hat on I normally refer to my stuff as 6mm ‘scale’ , everyone knows what that means.

But is scale the correct word, would ratio not be better?
Looking at various definitions I would see an argument that scale could be used when saying 6mm, just as size could.
But ratio would seem to fit 1/285th better.

Oh, and another reason I call 6mm a scale and not call 6mm models 1/300th is because they are not 1/300th.
The height may be correct at a ratio of 1:300 but the thickness of limbs and so on most certainly is not.
So I would argue that 6mm models are never true scale or true ratio as they would be massively grotesque if made 300 times bigger, but then isn’t that true of many wargames models…?

Anyway, just a thought around wargaming terminology that sometimes catches people out.

[Sparker]

I think ‘scale’ was simply the term adopted by the model railway types, who in the early days at least were far more numerous than us, and so its stuck. Interesting point though. FWIW, it use the term scale for model size, and ratio for working out relative unit sizes, and army sizes, for scenarios.

http://sparkerswargames.blogspot.com.au/
'Blessed are the peacekeepers, for they shall need to be well 'ard'
Matthew 5:9

[Sane Max]

Technically ‘6mm scale’ or ’15mm scale’ is wrong, but 90% of wargamers don’t Know that, and of the ones that do (including me) 99% don’t really care. The reason I don’t care is that I only object to terminological inexactitude when it causes confusion – and when someone says ‘what scale do you collect?’ they really mean ‘Do we both use the same size toys so we can play each other?’ rather than ‘what ratio did the designer of your toys make a vague stab at achieving when he made them?’

That last point is worth thrusting violently in the face of anyone who has a rant when you use ‘scale’ incorrectly. Buy any two packs of 1/72 scale figures and stand them next to each other. Odds are they will be about as close a match as Barbie and Action-Man.

[willz]

As Sane Max says.   “Buy any two packs of 1/72 scale figures and stand them next to each other. Odds are they will be about as close a match as Barbie and Action-Man.”

That is the misfortune of war-gaming, all figures be it metal, plastic or resin generally are designed by different sculptors / figure designers and unlike railway modeling our toys do not have to run on tracks so the exact scale issue is not as critical.  I personally overcome the variation in height / width  of figures supposedly of the same scale /size by what I call using constructive basing techniques.  The shorter figures are built up higher on the base than the taller ones or if this is not practical I will not mix manufacturers in battalions.

Would figure manufactures ever agree to have their figures all matching exactly a rivals, I personally can’t see it happening.

[Ivan Sorensen]

Everyone just makes it up 🙂

I’ve always understood it to refer purely to the height of a figure, since sculpting limitations means our little guys must all be chunky freaks 🙂

[irishserb]

When you say “6mm scale”, we in the hobby know within a fairly narrow range what you mean.  It is a term in common usage with an understood meaning.  I think that one can reasonably argue that terms like “6mm scale” are not wrong in that they are actually names of scales using a convention understood within the hobby that is based on approximate miniature height.  So right, wrong, either way I understand what you are talking about.

Regarding proper figure proportions…  Well, after building models of actual people for 28 years, I’ll just say that people aren’t proportioned the way most of us believe they are.

[Ivan Sorensen]

I seem to recall that GZG got a lot of flak for “weird proportions” back when they tried to get the proportions a bit more correct for their original 25mm figures 🙂

[kyoteblue]

I go with Size/scale that makes every one uncomfortable.

[Norm S]

Oooh, I feel strongly on this, so please excuse me.

There is NOTHING more boring than a poster being pedantic about the correct use of the terms scale/ size.

In the ‘other place’ in can frequently be seen, as some people feel a certain compunction to correct a previous poster on the proper use of terminology.

We are an international hobby, with a global audience on most forums and with that comes the fact that for many participant’s English is not a first language, though often their command of English is so good, it is not always obvious (and in truth better than some who have English as their native tongue). But it does mean that we operate in an environment in which there should be much more tolerance to spelling, terminology and sentence construction etc. Hopefully as societies we are striving towards becoming more inclusive and less exclusive. We are bound together by a common passion and sniping at someones literacy seems somewhat small minded and posters that do always come of sounding a little superior.

In an interview for the BBC it might matter – here much less so.

Also there will always be a natural corruption of language, it is a real world occurrence and I think the scale / size thing is one such example. I really do know the differences between scale and size but  for convenience I will most often use the term scale, as do many others, and in that regard, within our own wargame hobby bubble, we are probably widely corrupting the terms, to the point that they are increasingly becoming interchangeable.

As an aside, if 1/72 is around 23mm, we have one as a scale and the other as a size, yet both are representing say a 5’6″ man and as such, both are scalings of something bigger and set a benchmark for a constant ‘scaling’ against other figures in the same series and so of all the corruptions to have, it is one of the more understandable ones.

So if nobody minds too much (no …. please don’t), I will think of my preferred gaming scale as being 10mm 🙂

I have a rather long blog post being prepared in the back-ground about gaming scales and one of my early paragraphs draws attention to this issue. I mention that I will frequently refer to the term ‘scale’ when not always precisely in the correct context, but that I hope the ‘reader get’s it!’.

 

[Not Connard Sage]

I’m saying nothing.

well, apart from the above.^

 

 

er…

 

anyway, here’s some music to calm the savage breast

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQLTOGVld8A

 

 

 

 

 

Obvious contrarian and passive aggressive old prat, who is taken far too seriously by some and not seriously enough by others.

[Ivan Sorensen]

While we’re on the topic can we talk about “game scale”.

When someone says “platoon level game” I never have an idea if it means the force you command is a platoon (how I use it), that I am commanding a number of platoons each made of individual figures, or whether the individual infantry stand represents a platoon.

[Etranger]

In day to day use it doesn’t bother me, as after all people come in lots of different sizes and shapes. What does annoy me though is that the weapons vary in size between (& sometimes within!) different ranges that are nominally the same scale. That is where an actual numerical scale is important. 20mm gamers will be familiar with the perils of using 1/72 and 1/76 models alongside each other.

I too reserve ‘ratio’ for the number of men each figure represents, as that is a ratio of eg 1:50.

[Northern Monkey]

Great pics Etranger

it doesn’t bother me if you say 6mm or 1/3ooth I know what you mean either way and I think that goes for most of us, admittedly it can be confusing for total newbs, and those pedantic enough to bother commenting on the incorrect use of scale in this context are simply not  worth bothering with.

Ivan, I’ve always took it to mean that’s the upper limit of the forces you control, so Platoon level would have you commanding no more than 1 platoon plus reasonable support elements, regardless of basing conventions, though if you were playing 1 base = 1 platoon at platoon lvl it probably wouldn’t make for a very good game

 

My attempt at a Blog: http://ablogofwar.blogspot.co.uk/

[Ivan Sorensen]

Northern Monkey wrote:

Great pics Etranger
it doesn’t bother me if you say 6mm or 1/3ooth I know what you mean either way and I think that goes for most of us, admittedly it can be confusing for total newbs, and those pedantic enough to bother commenting on the incorrect use of scale in this context are simply not worth bothering with.
Ivan, I’ve always took it to mean that’s the upper limit of the forces you control, so Platoon level would have you commanding no more than 1 platoon plus reasonable support elements, regardless of basing conventions, though if you were playing 1 base = 1 platoon at platoon lvl it probably wouldn’t make for a very good game

That’s how I’ve generally taken it too, but I’ve seen other versions too.

A 1 base game? 🙂 That sounds like a challenge..

[Author]

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