SCALE.

WHAT SCALE IS MY ARMY?

I thought it useful to outline the size scale of my army, its soldiers and vehicles.

The basic starting point is the screw soldier. I use ½ inch number 6 screws which are 12½mm long. Assuming a living soldier is around 6 feet or 1.8m  tall that gives a scale of 2mm to the foot or 300mm. That makes a scale of 1/150th by my calculation, give or take a bit, which is the equivalent of N gauge.

I have to admit here that some of the actual sizes of vehicles/horses I use are not quite right but I also take the view that it is just as important that things  look right and are practical as well as being as close as possible to the right scale size.

With that in mind my horses are about 16-17mm high at the top of the head but only 10-11mm at the withers which gives a height of 5½ feet which is 16 hands which is a good size for Cavalry and generous for draught horses. They are  19-20mm long which gives a scale size of 10 feet long. According to the British Army Field Manual of 1914 a horse is 9 feet long so clearly I feed my horses too much !!!!!! However the point is that my horses are close enough to scale.

 As for vehicles, my  GS wagons ( and all other four wheeled vehicles ) are 15mm wide and 30mm long. That gives 15 feet in length and  and 7½ feet in width. According to the book Horse Drawn Transport of the British Army a  mark X GS wagon was 13½ feet long and 6¼ feet wide so I am a little oversized.  My various utility trailers are 15mm square which is 7½ feet each way. The British limbered wagon , on which my trailers are loosely based , was  6¼ feet by 5¼ feet so again I am a bit oversized. The drawing pins I use for wheels are 10mm across which is 5 feet and a British mark X GS wagon had wheels of 4 feet 8 inches in diameter so close there.

I guess the overall message is that some of my models are not precisely to scale but are close enough for me. Finally I apologise for the jumping around in respect of using imperial and metric sizes, it's the product of a certain age which makes me use imperial measures for large sizes and metric for small , which I also do in my woodworking hobby.