6mm Nap Project - Thurs 11/10/07

Okay. Okay. So 1 line of 6 stands of 6 men is not really 'mass' is it? Not when I made it such a dominating part of the evaluation process in the earlier articles. Is it? "No" I hear you say! And you would be right.

So,

When I was investigating the base sizes needed for Empire V rules and the cast bases for Irregular I worked out that a French Battalion in a 3 rank line took about 125m for 514 men or 175m for paper strength 720 men and a depth of 5m. The Empire V rules say that 1 inch in 6mm is 80 yards or 73.152m. So 25.4mm = 73.152m or 25.4mm = 73152mm. Therefore 1mm would equal 2032mm or 2m.

So a French Infantry Battalion in line of 3 ranks totalling 720 men would be 175m wide or 87.5mm on the tabletop with a depth of 5m which becomes 2.5mm deep. Now this depth is negotiable because of all the officers and area required for the admin of the formation. More on that later.

Irregular miniature's French Infantry stands of 6 men come precast and ready to go at 20mm wide. So to get 6 companies (ie 6 stands) would be to take up 120mm of tablespace. Almost 1.5 times that of the 87.5mm regulated. So here's what I did. I decided that I really wanted to use 6 stands to represent 6 companies. So I made a rule that all infantry historical widths would be multiplied by 1.5. The 87.5mm x 1.5 becomes 131.25 which is close to allowing 6 stands to represent 720men. Excellent!

Back to the depth of the battalion in line. If a French battalion in line means that all 6 companies stand in 3 ranks BESIDE each other, then each company would have a depth of 5m. If a battalion went to double column, ie 2 companies wide and 3 companies deep, I noticed the whole formation was not 5m x 3 deep becoming 15m. It was more like 50m deep. Therefore I deducted that each 3 rank company has a admin area behind it of another 5m-10m. So even doubling the 5m to make the depth 10m would be okay. Hmmm, nice idea that doubling.

Okay, so if I 1.5x the width and 2x the depth, I end up with 131.25mm width and at 10mm depth. If I fill that area with Irregular 20mm stands I get 2 ranks of stands and 6 stands wide as per the pic below.


This shows multiple French Line Infantry battalions in line facing a paper strength Prussian Line Infantry battalion in Line.




Yes it will cost a little more. But it does look a little more like the 'mass' I was wanting and you were all hoping to see.