Home Forums General General True ground scale by figure scale?

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  • #88161
    Avatar photoIvan Sorensen
    Participant

    Does anyone have a handy chart of “this is how far an inch of table represents” for each scale of figures, if the ground and figure scale were a match?

    I can do the math myself but I wondered if there was a handy-dandy resource out there ?

    #88165
    Avatar photoPhil Dutré
    Participant

    In 25mm, 1 inch represents 1.80m 😉

    Or here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miniature_figure_(gaming)#Scales

    #88179
    Avatar photoMr. Average
    Participant

    In 3mm scale, 1″ equals 50′-0″. That one I know off the top of my head. But that chart above is quite useful!

    #88278
    Avatar photoJohn D Salt
    Participant

    The article Phil linked to seems to me to be quite the worst Wikipedia entry I have seen in a long while. It contains all sorts of nonsense, including the popular, but for my money utterly daft, idea that the height of a soldier is measured only as far as the eyes. It claims that “With metrication in the United Kingdom, United States manufacturers began to use the metric system to describe miniatures, as opposed to the previously popular imperial units”, which seems to me to be abject piffle — Wm. Britain’s venerable toy soldiers were described as 54mm in my Airfix Magazines from the 1960s, and I understand that 54mm scale was established at the end of the 19th century. If anyone has any evidence that any modeller, collector or wargamer ever referred to a toy soldier by its height in inches (or lines, or barleycorns, or whatever piece of Imperial silliness seems appropriate) I would be astonished to hear it (apart from that bit in “Little Wars” where H.G. is explaining the different sizes of toy soldiers to readers who are, perhaps, unfamiliar with them). Likewise, I’d be astonished if anyone can give me the number of the STANAG declaring 1:300 to be a NATO standard scale.

    I offer instead this table I have just knocked up in a spreadsheet covering the three dozen best-known scales, most if not all of which I have seen used for wargaming.

    [pre]
    Scale Gauge Toy Soldier height (mm) 1 in to 1 in to mm/ft Notes
    Soldier 1.6m 1.7m 1.728m 1.8m (m) (ft)
    1:4800 0.33 0.35 0.36 0.38 122 400 0.064 Naval
    1:3000 0.53 0.57 0.58 0.6 76 250 0.102 Naval
    1:2400 0.67 0.71 0.72 0.75 61 200 0.127 Naval
    1:1250 1.28 1.36 1.38 1.44 32 104 0.244 Naval
    1:1200 1.33 1.42 1.44 1.5 30 100 0.254 Naval recognition scale
    1:700 2.29 2.43 2.47 2.57 18 58.3 0.435 Tamiya naval
    1:600 3mm 2.67 2.83 2.88 3 15 50 0.508 Naval; picoarmour
    1:450 3.56 3.78 3.84 4 11 37.5 0.677 Naval
    1:350 4.57 4.86 4.94 5.14 8.9 29.2 0.871 Naval
    1:300 ZZ 5mm 5.33 5.67 5.76 6 7.6 25 1.02 Heroics microarmour
    1:285 6mm 5.61 5.96 6.06 6.32 7.2 23.8 1.07 GHQ microarmour
    1:250 6.4 6.8 6.91 7.2 6.4 20.8 1.22 Architectural
    1:220 Z 7.27 7.73 7.85 8.18 5.6 18.3 1.39
    1:200 8 8.5 8.64 9 5.1 16.7 1.52 Architectural
    1:160 N 10mm 10 10.6 10.8 11.3 4.1 13.3 1.91
    1:152 OOO | 10.5 11.2 11.37 11.8 3.9 12.7 2 “2mm scale” to rly modellers
    1:148 N (Br) | 10.8 11.5 11.68 12.2 3.8 12.3 2.1
    1:144 12mm 11.1 11.8 12 12.5 3.7 12 2.1 Aircraft recognition scale
    1:120 TT 15mm 13.3 14.2 14.4 15 3.05 10 2.5
    1:102 TT (Br) 15.7 16.7 16.94 17.6 2.59 8.5 3 “3mm scale” to rly modellers
    1:100 18mm 16 17 17.28 18 2.54 8.33 3 Miltra AFV recognition models
    1:87 HO 20mm 18.4 19.5 19.86 20.7 2.21 7.25 3.5 Roco Minitanks, diecast cars
    1:76 OO 21.1 22.4 22.74 23.7 1.93 6.33 4 “4mm scale” to rly modellers
    1:72 25mm 22.2 23.6 24 25 1.83 6 4.2 Aircraft recognition scale
    1:64 S 28mm 25 26.6 27 28.1 1.63 5.33 4.8 Diecast cars
    1:56 30mm 28.6 30.4 30.86 32.1 1.42 4.67 5.4
    1:48 O (US) 33.3 35.4 36 37.5 1.22 4 6.4 “Quarter inch”/“quarter scale” for DHs
    1:45 O 35.6 37.8 38.40 40 1.14 3.75 6.8
    1:43 O (Br) 37.2 39.5 40.19 41.9 1.09 3.58 7.1 Diecast cars
    1:35 45.7 48.6 49.37 51.4 0.89 2.92 8.7 Tamiya tanks
    1:32 1 54mm 50 53.1 54 56.3 0.81 2.67 9.5 Britains soldiers
    1:24 66.7 70.8 72 75 0.61 2 12.7 “Half-inch”/“half scale” for DHs
    1:18 88.9 94.4 96 100 0.46 1.5 16.9 Diecast cars
    1:16 III 100 106.3 108 112.5 0.41 1.33 19.1 RC tanks
    1:12 133.3 141.7 144 150 0.30 1 25.4 Doll’s houses, diecast cars
    1:6 266.7 283.3 288 300 0.15 0.5 50.8 Action Man; “play scale” for DHs
    [/pre]

    The soldier heights I have caculated for 1.6, 1.7 and 1.8m as representing a reasonable spread of heights for grown men; a bit smaller than 1.6m would qualify as a “Bantam” to a WW1 British Army recruiter, 1.8m is about the old minimum for the foot guards, and happens to be my height. 1.728m I have included because William Britain’s 54mm soldiers were always stated to be 1/32 scale, and if we can’t take that as a fixed and solid point of reference, we may as well give up in despair. There follow a couple of columns showing how many metres or feet are represented by one inch on the table — I assume it is not necessary to perform the calculation for people who measure using the coherent system of units. A column showing the number of millimetres to the scale foot is included, as this helps explains some of the odd names attached to scales by railway modellers (rly modellers) and people who build doll’s houses (DHs).

    As a member of the Airfix generation, I of course regard 1:76 (4mm to the foot) as the correct scale for terrestrial wargaming models, but this comes from railway modelling. British railway modellers, oddly, used “HO/OO” scale, which meant OO scale rolling stock running on HO scale track. The railway modeller habit of naming scales after the number of millimetres to the foot means that they say “3mm scale” when they mean TT (1:102), not, as a wargamer would expect, pico armour (1:600). At least as confusingly, doll’s house folks say “quarter scale” to mean 1:48, as it is a quarter the size of their “standard” scale of 1 inch to the foot.

    As well as railway modelling and doll’s houses, there are scales inherited from diecast car collectors, who seem to like 1:12, 1:18, 1:24, 1:32, and 1:64 scales, which seems a tidy logical progression, and then throw in 1:43 and 1:87 either to baffle us or to keep in with the railway modellers. 1:72 was the scale the RAF chose for its aircraft recognition models, and has been around at least since the Skybirds models of the 1930s. One inch to 6 feet makes 72 sound like a convenient round number. Other popular aircraft scales, 1:144 for airliners, 1:48 and 1:24 for big models, are conveniently 12, 4, or 2 scale feet to the inch. The original naval recognition scale (was Fred T Jane the originator of this, I wonder?) also shows its Imperial origins in being 1 inch to 100 feet. 1:600, 1:2400 and 1:4800 are obvious multiples. 1:700 I have always regarded, like 1:35, as a deliberately odd scale devised by wicked Japanese model manufacturers in order to lock us in to their lovely high-quality products. There are also some suspiciously round scales that seem to originate from architect’s models, but which seem little used.

    The “Toy Soldier” column shows what I would consider to be the right scale correspondence for conventional terrestrial toy soldier scales such as 15mm, 20mm, and so on. Some of these are not really capable of dispute; no serious person would argue with 54mm being identified with 1:32, or 25mm with 1:72. Some people will, no doubt, disagree with my use of 20mm to signify HO (1:87) scale, in which case I would ask whether they are assuming shortarse soldiers, refusing to measure above their eyebrows, or unable to do the maths correctly. I think it is fair to allow some degree of fungibility (to annoy Tim) where there is overlap in the scale heights between a 1.6m and a 1.8m soldier, so mixing 1:76 and 1:72 blokes would seem OK, and a 1.6m soldier in 28mm (1:64) could be a “heroic” 1.8m tall in 25mm (1:72). Unpicking exactly what is meant by the 10mm and 12mm scale designations seems especially tricky, as 11.2mm would be a perfectly believeable height for a man in any scale from 1:160 to 1:144. My own preference would be for 1:144 as a venerable aircraft scale, because I prefer aircraft to trains, but N gauge also has a long and respectable history, even if European and British railway modellers cannot agree on exactly what scale N gauge really is.

    Anyone who wants to try to explain to me that “25mm isn’t a scale, it’s a size” should be prepared to further explain why scale modellers of trains and doll’s houses can use convenient labels for established scales other than the numerical ratio, but wargamers can’t. Architects, naval modellers and aircraft modellers all seem to use just the numerical ratio to designate the scale, and I’m sightly baffled as to why terrestrial wargamers don’t do so more often.

    All the best,

    John.

    #88279
    Avatar photoIvan Sorensen
    Participant

    Oh wow, that is most excellent.

    Thank you friend 🙂

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