SYW frontages?

[vtsaogames]

Off the top of my head, presuming 600 strong battalions and 150 strong squadrons, unit frontages should be:

Infantry, 22 inches per file, 3 ranks deep (ignoring file closers) 22 * 200 = 4400 inches = 366.6 feet = ~122 yards.

Cavalry, 1 yard per file, 3 ranks deep (*as above) = 50 yards.

So if my table top battalion has a frontage of 8 inches then my squadron frontage should be about 4 inches or less.

Does that sound right or am I ignoring some critical component? I'm not after exact so much as in the right ballpark. Help me, hive mind.

Oh yeah, artillery should have a frontage of 10-12 yards per gun.

[abu iskander]

You might find this link useful:

http://obscurebattles.blogspot.com/2014/07/lobositz-1756.html

[vtsaogames]

Close enough. Thanks.

[FifteensAway]

Heresy warning!!!

If someone made chits that looked like the cavalry illustration, I think I might be tempted to buy them.  For the SYW.  Well, I'd want a better representation of the ground.  And it would need to be a wide selection so I could field all the nations.  Just sayin'. 

[olicana]

You will probably not take heed of a word I'm about to say about unit 'frontages' but, I think it's worth saying; especially if you are looking at it from the premise of what is 'game-able' for the average collector.

When deciding how I would go for my SYW collections and basing, I started in the gaming place rather than with the absolute facts. It has worked well for me so I thought I'd share my conclusions.

Working on the principal that to play big battles (using 28mm figures), unless you have access to a very big room and a very large figure collection (possibly of a group rather than an individual), you have to scale accordingly.

Consequently, I collected armies big enough not to have to rely on the figures of others (50 - 60 units per army), with which I would be able to recreate most battles on the table in my wargaming room (15 x 6). The armies I chose to collect were Austrian, Prussian and Russian. All three of these armies are now finished (except for limbers which, as it happens, I'm presently doing).

Zorndorf:



These three armies mostly fielded infantry regiments of two battalions (mostly, and a dollop of fudge). Knowing that the number of battalions required to fight big battles was out of scope I went for each individual unit representing two battalions (a 'regiment', and a dollop of fudge) rather than one battalion each.

Funnily enough, two infantry battalions have pretty much the same frontage (in line) as five squadrons of cavalry (which for the Prussians and Austrians was a regiment - this was true of the Russians too at full strength but, sadly they were quite often only three squadrons, so I have to combine them, using a dollop of fudge, to get the right representative 'unit numbers').

Liegnitz:



Given that most rules don't have an accurate ground scale - they use silly firing and movement distances in proportion to any unit frontage lengths and time scales - this seemed as logical as anything else. For a 'historical battlefield ground scale' I lay out the troops according to deployment maps and build the terrain around them in accordance with the footprint the units make (actually, I use pieces of paper with a unit footprint, see below), then fight the battles as per the rules without any notion of actual ground scale - not once has anyone EVER asked a question regarding historical ground scale, not even at wargame conventions - because no one really cares, I guess.

Lobositz:





My units ('regiments'  ) are all based on four bases, 45 mm frontage, for units of 24 foot or 8 cavalry. This is the only downside - because you can't get 12 cavalry figures onto a 180 mm unit frontage. It's the biggest dollop of fudge I've had to swallow. That said, because I don't use rules that count heads - I only use rules that count units - the games have been great.

Austrian infantry (24 man, 2 battalion regiments) move into position at Liegnitz:



Some of my Russian and Prussian cavalry (8 man, 5 squadron regiments) as seen in Honours of War (Keith Flint, Osprey).

[FifteensAway]

Olicana nails an important point.  History is the inspiration but it is the game that matters.  Make the game work and the figures and terrain 'look' like the history and all else falls away and, with the right players and rules, we are left with having fun.  And that, boys and girls, is the real point.  Or should be.

[FlyXwire]

Beautiful pictures olicana, and size does have an appeal all of it's own.

Here's a comparison between 15mm & 28mm figs using the same ground scale, but using different size bases at a 1" = 20 yards ratio.  In order to maintain the same unit frontage between our two sized figures, while still being able to mount the castings onto stable bases, the convention of stacking the 28s two-ranks deep was chosen.  Now the difference in the look of the 28mm line is apparent, with the 2-rank depth required to maintain the same stand-to-frontage ratio distorting the unit's footprint in it's depth.   



This can be some of the trade-off when trying to maintain the same ground and figure scale between different size figures.

We opted for the actual scale frontage for our 28s, and then had to accept the less elegant appearance of their battle lines.

What this did allow our group to do though, was to paint half the number of 28mm figures needed for the equivalent number of 15mm figures used (not a issue with the 15s, but much more of a savings with the 28s).

There's no denying the 28s take better pictures, but then there's the desire to make those unit lines look proper by elongating them beyond their actual scale footprints (sometimes double their required frontages).  Along with the elongation, comes the need to accommodate these bigger figure frontages onto bigger game tables.  Our same-scale frontages, let us present the same density of units within the same game space, but we have to accept the visual distortion that occurs along with the bigger figures.

After modelling different periods in these two figures scales, I personally like the overall affect of the 15s.  Lines can stack up much tighter without the figures becoming "blocks", and work more precisely for the passage of lines or suffered retreats, the open space being more manageable, and the game terrain can often be tighter to scale too.

In a perfect world, I think I'd trade all the 15s and 28s in now for 10mm, and/or leave the big figures only for skirmish gaming.

 

[abu iskander]

My modest and much smaller attempt to address frontage and ground scale at 6mm, each stand representing a company/division (4 per BN) and in in line with the diagram in my earlier post. Cavalry has been based proportionally to the infantry company frontage. Still very much work in progress and have had to make some other abstractions, but I think the project will come together in a satisfactory manner.

[FlyXwire]

AB, that's looking impressive!

[vtsaogames]

I was just asking to make sure my scheme isn't way off. My plan is to use 15mm Seven Years War figures (originally 12 figure battalions) to make 48 figure units in two ranks (8" frontage) and 16 figure cavalry squadrons (4" frontage) on my new Killing Fields teddy bear fur mat. The rules? Rebels & Patriots. The idea is to get a fast simple game with lots of figures on the table (just a few units). Realistic? Hmm. But it should look pretty good. Each battalion will be made up of one of my usual brigades. I've got a 4 X 6 foot table in a Manhattan apartment, no hope of ever getting a larger one in here.

I played a game with such units years back and home brew rules that didn't cut it. I think R&P will give us a good game. You may well ask if I'm going with a skirmish set of rules, why ask about frontages? Hey, why not?

[olicana]

I've got a 4 X 6 foot table in a Manhattan apartment, no hope of ever getting a larger one in here.

Sounds familiar, East Side?

[vtsaogames]

Sounds familiar, East Side?

Corlears Hook, the part that juts out into the East River south of Alphabet City.

[olicana]

Sounds familiar, East Side?

Corlears Hook, the part that juts out into the East River south of Alphabet City.

I have a client I paint for up on East 72nd who has a small apartment with a 6 x 4, so I wondered if you might be one and the same.

Silly me : New York's a big place; two wargamers with small apartments and 6 x 4s isn't that unlikely, I guess.

[FlyXwire]

You may well ask if I'm going with a skirmish set of rules, why ask about frontages? Hey, why not?

A simple scale comparison would be to take your battalion's frontage [8"], and see if muskets can effectively fire much further than that.  That's a pretty coarse example, but it expresses a general relationship of how battalions could maneuver in relationship to small arms fire.  This also prepares the distance between firing lines, and sets up the proximity for driving the bayonet home - and the effectiveness of charging.

Sounds like your collection's beefier battalions will now take more damage, and so if with fewer units on the table, these will be able to sustain more casualties (this can allow your ground scale to be more precise and/or with smaller increments of movement up to contact).

Sounds like some bloody good fun, and looking forward to seeing your results in action!

[vtsaogames]

Silly me : New York's a big place; two wargamers with small apartments and 6 x 4s isn't that unlikely, I guess.

Don't know about your client, but you misunderstand; by Manhattan standards, my apartment is a large one, 2 bedrooms, nearly 1,000 square feet.