From: Robert N Bryett <rbryett@g...>
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2005 11:48:19 +1000
Subject: Re: [GZG] Mini scale (Was: (Minis) I'm Baaaaaaack.......)
> 1/72 is about 20mm, hence the many WW2 (etc.) wargamers who mix I'm a bit puzzled by some of the maths here. At 1/64 scale 25mm would represent 1.6m (about 5'3").... That's pretty short for a guy. Once upon a pre-metric time, I was very heavily into 1/72 scale plastic modelling, and especially into dioramas combining figures, vehicles and aircraft. I was also playing WW2 infantry/armour wargames with a mixture of Airfix 1/72 AFVs and HO (1/87) scale, plastic non-kit AFVs from another maker (German I think) whose name escapes me now (Rocco?). Scale was a bit of a mess then, and doesn't seem to have got any better, but muddling up 1/72 and 1/87 was widespread. Airfix plastic figures were often described as HO, when they were really a nominal 1/72 for example, and they certainly looked "big" next to HO scale vehicles. Back then we thought of 1/72 as "one inch equals six feet", and we were naive enough to measure figures from boot heel to top of head/ helmet. That would imply that a 25mm tall figure was about 5'11" (1.8m) tall, and a 20mm figure would be around 4'10" (1.47m). That's a wide range, but not outside possibility in a multi-ethnic, multi-gender army (I'm sure that petite Chinese cutie would make a dandy powered-armour trooper...). In 1/87 six feet is just over 21mm, so a 20mm figure would be about 5'9" (1.75m - pretty average for a European male), and a 25mm figure would be about 7'2" (2.18m)! Still, maybe a big man in powered armour? In the end you just have to mix and match by eye. Personally I feel that 20mm (HO, 1/87) figs fit better into a 25mm (1/72) world than vice versa, but your mileage may vary.