"Should there be a scale police?...or authority?" Topic

I could argue that a manufacturere could actually lose money if it was suddenly listed as 31mm instead as the advertised 28mm.

OFM shoots… he scores!

In fact, I can think of several actual instances of exactly this, the most memorable (for me, via my own intensely researched and indisputably valid arbitrary standards of "because it's the first one that came to mind") example being the very talented David Soderquist's Bronze Age Miniatures.

In several news articles/press releases that Bill posted on here, Dave listed the actual size of the newly released figures (32mm to the top of the head, as I recall), and the comments were immediately flooded with several carps about "Too big!" and "Why would anyone release in such a useless scale?!" and so forth, along with the usual stern admonishments of how he'd summarily lost several people's $6 USD or whatever it was, and so on- the usual, in other words.

Dave's only sin was stating the actual figure size, rather than claiming to be "Villainous 28mm," or "Dutch* 28mm," or "Especially Well-Nourished 28mm," or what have you- I own quite a few Bronze Age figures, including the very ones released in this instance, and they are perfectly suitable for mixing with any number of "theoretical" 28s, including those bemoaned in the complaints of "I'd really hoped to use these with my War Of Jenkin's Cyberear heavy infantry!"

I even said as much, before the vast majority of the negative comments, but to no avail- apparently, rulers and visual comparisons lie, and only the packaging (or website) that states that said figures are 28mm can be trusted.

So, yes, our illustrious Sir John of Oheff'em's got it dead to rights- listing actual size can actually be the kiss of death, when it comes to sales- regardless of compatibility, as perverse as it sounds.

- Monk

D'oh- I forgot to add the footnote. Allow me to correct that oversight:

*: I am "around" 6' 2" tall: I consider myself 6' 1 1/2" tall, but my height has been measured everywhere from a little over 6' even- which I know I am taller than- to 6' 3" and some change- which I likewise know I am shorter than- by medical professionals, over the last decade.

So, I just go with 6' 2" anymore, and ignore the people (like 2 separate girlfriends, one 5' even, the other 5' 11") who insist that I'm wrong and that I am, in fact, somehow magically taller than I am.

What does this have to do with the Dutch, you ask?

Well, pretend you asked, anyway. C'mon, work with me here.

Anyway, as a result of the whole height strangeness, and from growing up "tall" to the outside world (or so I've been told, repeatedly), but easily the shortest male in my immediate family (father is 6' 4 1/2", brother is 6' 7 1/2"-6' 8"), I not only don't have any height "issues," but I largely tend not to notice when people are taller than I am, since I grew up used to it at home.

…and then I visited The Netherlands.

I met no fewer than 3 people who were pushing 7' tall in Delft alone, long before we even reached Amsterdam. It was also the first time in my life that I have ever actually felt short- which was especially noticeable, in this case, because I had just moved to France a few months prior (to Clermont-Ferrand- considered home of Gaul folk hero Vercingetorix!- in the Auvergne region, in central-ish France), and was still adjusting to suddenly feeling like some great towering beast, and having the (5' even) French girl I was living with at the time refer to me as "my boyfriend, the giant" to people.

In the matter of a single roadtrip, I went from being a giant, to suddenly finding myself smiled down at by a good 25% of the native girls I ran into, who were taller than I was (in heels/boots/whatever, or so I continue to tell myself to this day), and then glowered at by a good 60% or more of their boyfriends, who towered over me.

Guess that's what I get for getting cocky and suddenly feeling tall.

Ahem. So, yeah.

Hence, "Dutch 28mm."

- Monk

Hence, "Dutch 28mm."

I lived in the Netherlands in the 80's and saw a similar phenomenon. Being that I was in high school at the time, I met a lot of my tall friends' parents. They were not that tall. Not a statstical study, but life experience observation.

I do like your post because it gets at what I was trying to say a little snarkier (more snarkily?) – what does "human normal" mean in the first place? Well, it means a lot of things with a lot of fuzzy subdivisions and biased selectors for them.

I like to play games with civilians in them. Generally, we tend to select for and groom after selection certain physical characteristics in our uniformed militaries. Some things in modern eras self select, such as aptitude being a function of physically fitting into equipment (and yet I knew a very tall senior chief who worked on submarines and a jet pilot whose callsign was "phonebook" because people didn't think he could see over the dashboard of the cockpit).

When we get to irregular militaries, I think we see a lot more selection due to external factors. I would expect larger guys to migrate to the front lines in the Zombie Apocalypse and would expect to see smaller, thinner guys who pick up arms to support an ideologic cause because of poverty.

So, if we can't really even have a standard for what a person is, what do we do?

The only sane thing that has been suggested here. Look at the minis compared to others you have. Ask your friends. Post a request online. And, if you buy from a new line, post a few comparison pix with other guys you have.

So, if we can't really even have a standard for what a person is, what do we do?

You are whipping up a problem where none exists. The average height for people in various times and places is known to a sufficient degree of accuracy, as is the standard deviation of height. Make the figure to an actual proportional scale e.g. 1/56 instead of this size-scale silliness and the problem disappears. A Long Land pattern Brown Bess musket is 1.1" (28mm) in 1/56 how long is it in '28mm scale'?

Again the silhouette system sweeps away all these objections and difficulties of comparison.

I'll volunteer to make the silhouettes if someone will manage the database.

Totally agree with T Meier, 1/56 is the reference for equipment, human sizes vary, I usually produce around 28mm foot to eye level with some (within reason) variations.

Surely it is snarkilier, perhaps the scale police should have a Snark Derivatives Department.

So, if we can't really even have a standard for what a person is, what do we do?

You are whipping up a problem where none exists. The average height for people in various times and places is known to a sufficient degree of accuracy

No, but you are focusing on what you want in order to take my comment out of context. My argument presupposes that there are data to work from. Those data are not particularly useful unless I want to reproduce the entire sample population.

Mean and standard deviation aren't particularly useful stats for human dimensions, either – given a mean and standard deviation for the height of X people from Y area in Z time and applying a normal distribution, I get a non-zero percentage of people who were less than 0" tall and a non-zero percentage of people who are greater than 4m tall.

And the existence of some parametric data (and not really a lot when you consider then scope of people you want to model given the various events discussed on these boards) doesn't really help with subsets. A "reasonable" sample of all of X people from Y area in Z time doesn't help me with the height, weight, and body type the people in their army or volunteer fire department.

While you may have some height data, how much weight data do you have? How about BMI? How about bone structure? Musculature? Slouching? My Eastern European and Wyandotte relatives have amazingly different body types, yet would be demographically placed in the same town and time frame as each other. Heck, my wife's Swedish and Danish sides of the family look like different species (neither of which is human in my opinion).

I don't argue with the 1:56 equipment scale or the shilouetting. Those are both techniques that compare to a desired referent. As is putting figures next to each other. Utlimately, it comes down to how do the figures look in concert. There are a lot of additional style issues that affect the overall effect beyond scaling.

While you may have some height data, how much weight data do you have?

There is plenty of weight and build data for post 19th century military and civilian populations. More than enough to establish standard deviations for pre-modern populations.

Really this is quibbling. 75% of people are within a standard deviation of the mean. For small figures that's about a millimeter +/-. Realistic weight and build variation for 75% of soldiers again would barely be noticeable. There are very few times and places where soldiers got fat and the differences between the weights of lean people the same height are not great except at the extremes of variability.

Posture does greatly impact perceived height which is why measurement is so difficult and rulers in photos do so little good.

And in any case variation in heft and height does not appreciably affect perceived compatibility, it is extreme differences in proportions, particularly of the head and hands which has the greater impact.

Really this is quibbling. 75% of people are within a standard deviation of the mean.

It's only quibbling from the standpoint of poor understanding of anthropometrics and statistics.

If 75% of the people are within one standard deviation of the mean and height is normally distributed, then 5 soldiers of a 20 man unit would be outside that mean (whether or not that would be noticeable depends on what that standard deviation is; +/- 1mm @ 1:56 is +/1 56mm/5.6mm/<2.25"; do you believe that is the 1st standard deviation for all populations at all times).

But 75% of people aren't within one standard deviation. ~68.2% are, which means 7 or 8 out of 20 would be outside the first standard deviation; 1mm, 5mm, or whatever…

But that would only apply if human height were normally distributed. If you could prove that, you could eliminate a lot of work done by the NIH, CDC, and WHO. None of those organizations believe that (maybe it has something to do with the probability that someone has negative height), but it would simplify a lot of data analysis for them, if it were true.

link
link
who.int/childgrowth/mgrs/en
PDF link

There are very few times and places where soldiers got fat

That's why no country now has, nor ever has had a process to kick people out of the military when it happens.

and the differences between the weights of lean people the same height are not great except at the extremes of variability

Which is why stores only carry clothes that are +/- 2.25" from each other. Who would buy the rest of them?

68.2% are, which means 7 or 8 out of 20

Last time I checked 2 x 6.82 was 13.64 and 20 – 13.64 was 6.36, not 8 or even 7. You apparently have a different standard of mathematical precision for your own arguments from what you apply to contrary ones.

And again by quibbling you avoid the real point. No one expects or needs to represent human variation in the extremes to make a representative group of men. Only in the realm of mathematical abstraction are measurements precise but this does not stop us from making serviceable constructions in this one. It is not a difficult problem unless by quibbling you make it one.

kick people out of the military

Excuse me, I should have added, 'on campaign' though I don't suppose it would have helped since you seem determined to distort, pick at or misconstrue whatever observations I make. Rear-echelon and peacetime war-gaimg certainly hasn't gotten it's fair share of attention.

Which is why stores only carry clothes that are +/- 2.25" from each other.

Now you are deliberately ignoring the sense of what I said. "LEAN people of the SAME HEIGHT".

Last time I checked 2 x 6.82 was 13.64 and 20 – 13.64 was 6.36, not 8 or even 7.

Your math is right, but once again, you are applying math in a way that it is not intended. I have probably seen 6.36 people on the battlefield, but that concept doesn't apply here. Rounding to the next highest whole person, it is 7, depending on your level of significance (which you don't provide), 7 or 8.

Excuse me, I should have added, 'on campaign'

Got it, no one has even been kicked out of the military for putting on weight 'on campaign'. I'm sure thousands of people will be delighted to be getting back pay.

Now you are deliberately ignoring the sense of what I said. "LEAN people of the SAME HEIGHT".

No, I put that part of your subordinate clause in the context of the rest of the sentence. When you pull it out of its context like that, I can see what you mean, and I agree with your point. When you artifcially constrain yourself to a very narrowly defined subset of people (that are not representative of the population types you are using for your referent), those variations would be minimal.

No one expects or needs to represent human variation in the extremes to make a representative group of men.

I thought you did.

There is plenty of weight and build data for post 19th century military and civilian populations.

Rounding to the next highest whole person, it is 7…

You had me there for a few posts. I guess the joke is on me but I have to say your delivery is excellent, perfect deadpan.

I just like to buy little soldiers???
regards
Russ dunaway

I always wanted to be tall, but my folks saved up and got me good looks instead.

Model railroaders are generally going for scale accuracy and prototype authenticity. We're generally looking for "good enough."

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problem is that too that railway modellers apply a consistent scale on their layouts – we don't – if someone turns up to play WAB/HC or whatever with Warlord EI Romans Romans and the other player has got Renegade Celts say, which will tower over them, is one gamer or the other going to pack up his stuff because it will "look silly" when they have a melee – or try ECW with Perry cavalry vs Bicorne or Redoubt – looks like men on horses against boys on ponies if you really want to make a fuss about it

per my point of course people would not field a 20mm army vs a 25/28mm – but 25/28mm is, as they'd say in England, a broad church so there's no similar split – viz for instance the big League of Augsburg games featured in WI where there were Front Rank facing off Minifigs

I've forgotten the question…

Close in figures is generally good enough. I look upon the differences as the difference in height between me [5'10"] and my my buddy Larry [6'2"].

I would love it if all 15mm and 18mm figures were all very close in size. I'd love to be able to buy figures knowing they will fit in well together. It's not going to happen though, so I vote for more comparison photos to be made available.
I can live with some variance in size but sometimes it is just too much. I eventually want to put together some chinese for boxer rebellion/opiumwars and wondered about the Lancashire games ones, however, when I checked them at a show they were clearly 20mm+ figures. I had the same probelem with a museum miniatures pack I ordered. I couldn;t really see 15mm minifig brits fighting these 7foot giant chinese!

I picked up a large number of stifles for taking a company to task for advertising their upcoming models as being 28mm, 32mm and 1/56 scale all at the same time, in the same advertisement.
At least they stopped making those claims.

Less regulation … not more.

I've forgotten the question…

If a 28mm train leaves Hogwarts bound for King's Cross station at 10:02 am traveling at 1:56 scale speed of 62 kph and an HO (standard) train leaves King's Cross sation bound for Hogwarts along the same line as the previously mentioned train at 9:57 am traveling at 1:72 scale speed of 54 kph, given that King's Cross station and Hogwarts are 1h 17m apart travelling at 1:48 scale speed of 59 kph, but stopping for 3m 15s to clear the track of dementors, how long does it take for the trains to phase through each other? Don't forget to correct for Moonlight Savings Time.

Would that be Mounted Scale Police?