"Correct size for WWII figurines (15mm...20mm...25/8mm)" Topic

We all know the gripes about models in the basic wargaming scales being the "wrong" size for the scale, being too tall or too short. Often the answer's not even in the name, with "20mm" not being 20mm tall for instance.

Well, what is the proper height for 15mm, 20mm and 25/8mm WWII models? Let's say standing straight up, to top of helmet (for troops not wearing a combed helmet or similar, so a simple rounded dome like the stahlhelm or the Russian helmet).

Another question -- what's the preferred "bigger than 20mm" scale these days, 25mm or 28mm? (Although I suppose the size answer will sort that out!)

I think 28mm is the current standard. I do not think 25mm is as popular now. However, 28mm in WW2 varies a lot between brands. I think that you would have to decide what is most popular. I have good solid metal Artizan and Crusader figures but I suspect new buyers are influenced by plastics.

From memory, Artizan, Crusader, Blacktree and Victory Force are all roughly 32mm to top of the helmet. Bolt Action and Perry are much smaller, probably 28mm to the top of the helmet.

I have Peter Pig, FoW, FiB and Skytrex/CD figures and they are all pretty much the same size. Measuring them from the sole of the boot to the eye – and picking ones that standing up relatively straight to compensate for variations in posture – the come in at approximately 15mm … so 17-18mm from the bottom of the base to the top of the head.

This seems to be a converging norm: PP figs have stopped getting bigger, FoW (which did get bigger) seem to have calmed back down a bit. Heads vary a bit from range to range (though again, re new releases, not so much as they did) and FoW weapons remain a bit large for the figure size.

They are all a bit on the chunky side for mid 20th Cent Europeans, of course (hence the convention of making the vehicles in the ranges a convenient 1:100 scale).

I was kind of surprised when the sole to eye came out at 15 – I guess that means that a barefoot man would be around 15.5 to the top of his head (a bit over 15, but not by much)

Phil
P.B.Eye-Candy

Just match 20mm to AB Figures WW2 range and you will be grand… They fit with most other ranges.

If you want shots of a variety of 20mm next to a scale ruler, I can sort you some images.

Agreed, AB WWII minis should be the gold standard for 20mm.

15mm = 1/100
20mm = 1/72
28mm = 1/56 OR 1/48, big debate on that one. I personally fall on the 1/48 side.

I think 28mm is the most popular "bigger than 20" scale. Seems to be more manufacturers and products in that scale than say, 25s. Not to mention more vehicles to match your 28s
(again depending on if you like 1/56 or 1/48.)

I use Wargames Factory plastic figures for the regular armed soldiers, but I use Warlord weapons teams since WF doesn't make them (sadly) WF are 28mm to top of the head. I think WG are 28 to top of eye, but I don't know since I lop their heads off and replace with WF ones anyway.

Cheers Piers -- how tall in mm?

Usually average around 22mm John, but let me sort a pic and do some checks across a range of makers.

I own just about all makes so can give you examples and an overall average.

The handy thing with AB is that the height and 'build' tend to fit well with chunkier and slimmer options, as well as slightly smaller and taller options.

Pics will say it better than my hamfisted rambling…

Are AB "20mm" small compared to 1/72 plastic figures? I know I am a luddite, but I still prefer to use plastic/polythene for most of my war gaming. Thanks

Dunno… Don't have any plastic! :)

In a perfect world, 15mm, 20mm and 25mm/28mm figures should be exactly that high in mm from the sole of the feet to the top of the head or helmet, but due to scale creep we see a lot of exaggeration in scale nowadays. Also, some sculptors tend toward figures that are wider or bulkier and increase the height accordingly so they look more proportionally correct.

There is also disagreement on where height should reach. Some believe that scale is measured from the feet to eye level, not to the top of the head.

And I agree that 25mm has pretty much been supplanted by the more popular 28mm to 32mm 'scale.'

Sorry, but I guess there is little standardization on what 'correct size' is in WWII, or any other period or genre for that matter because mm is not a scale like 1/100, 1/72 or 1/56.

The size already dictates the scale. a 6 foot man (or length of anything 6 ft)= 1800mm (rounded) So in 15mm, a 6 foot man would stand 15mm from bottom of feet to top of head (or across the eyes if you follow the "artzy" way of measuring.

Therefore divide the size into 1800 and the result is the "scale" of that figure (ie: 1800 divided by 15=1/120th scale. 18mm would be 1/100th scale; 25mm= 1/72nd scale, etc. (The quotent of the result becomes the denominator of the scale fraction.)

Just like with model buildings, not everything stays "in scale" with the figures when using metal as the casting medium. metal mixture, mold shrinkage, etc. will always keep strict scale accuracy for most manufacturers not willing to spend countless hours carefully calculating and adjusting for shrinkage. The difference in small variances are generally unnoticeable to the naked eye. Only the hard core rivet counters would ever know!

Jon,

I have a large collection of 15mm WW2. Most of my WW2 armies (German and Russian) are Old Glory Command Decision, but I also have some Peter Pig (engineers) and Rebel Miniatures (snipers).

They all measure 18mm from the bottom of the feet to the top of the helmet.

I hope this helps!
David

or across the eyes if you follow the "artzy" way of measuring.

There's nothing "artzy" about it, it's the only practical way to do it. Most soldiers wear some sort of hat, of many different shapes and sizes, which hide exactly where the top of the head is. One can make a decent guess, but the eyes are always visible, so there's no guess-work involved in figuring out where they are.

To me the "mm" method was always a bit daft. 6 ft man and do it by actual scale. 1/72 is a figure height of 25.4mm (1"). Some plastics actualy work out at about 24/25mm but not all folk are 6ft. That way hopefully you get the vehicles at the right scale. to me 12mm is not its 1/144. N guauge is 1/144 (UK)or 1/150 or 1/160 rest of world. Japanese plastic are 1/144.

As has been said 15mm is really 1:100.

what's the preferred "bigger than 20mm" scale these days? Why, 3 mm in my games (6 mm in a pinch.)

Just saying…

Just match 20mm to AB Figures WW2 range and you will be grand… They fit with most other ranges.

Agreed…

Are AB "20mm" small compared to 1/72 plastic figures? I know I am a luddite, but I still prefer to use plastic/polythene for most of my war gaming. Thanks

I have plastics and metals, and would say that AB mix nicely with all of them. They are not what I would consider "small", but sit decently in the middle. My British forces contain Italeri, Revell, AB, Caesar, Airfix (new), PSC, Wartime Miniatures, Kelly's Heroes, & Battlefield/Blitz.

I was told by Mike Hickling that the excellent AB figures are 1/76th rather than 1/72nd, and the way to tell is by measuring the weapons.

To my mind that makes them a wonderful fit with 1/72nd scale vehicles…

"As has been said 15mm is really 1:100."

Although back in the dim and distant past it was 1/106, which is generally what Skytrex and older (maybe even current?) QC stuff is.

Similarly '20mm' for me is 1/76th, although there is much variation among manufacturers. Even when I was a kid some of the '1/72nd' scale offerings we so huge compared to Airfix that they were ridiculous.

The AB figures fit well with most plastics, being on the slim side, and excepting the odd Revell or HaT giant.

Yes, AB are 1/76th.

Martin at Peter Pig has been quite candid over the years that 15mm and 1:100 are not the same and that he deliberately adopted 1:100 as the vehicle scale to match 15mm because he though it looked right (given that 15mm wargame figures are more solidly constructed than the real people who would have fitted more naturally with true scale vehicles).

Dye4minis is a bit off with '1:120' because men are not 6' tall. 5'4" (sometimes 5'6") seems commonly given for medieval times, rising to 5'7" by the 18th Cent. (and 5'10" today). Taking 5'6" as the working historical average, a '15mm' figure comes out somewhere between 1:105 and 1:110 (as Martin Rapier suggests, 1:106 used to be the quoted ratio) …

I think 1:106 figures with 1:100 vehicles _is 15mm (I think that's why it is better to call it 15mm than to try to convert it to a precise ratio)

Phil

5'4" (sometimes 5'6") seems commonly given for medieval times.

Not based on the digs of battles from the War of the Roses. Average height of the deceased was 5'8" or so.

It was the Industrial Revolution that saw several generations of painfully stunted workers due to atrocious nutrition. The British Army, not exactly known for feeding the troops well, recorded many cases of the young soldiers gaining as much as 6" in height once they got on Army rations instead of whatever little they could afford. And that was DURING WW1.

Makes the point, Lion in the Stars …

I'm aware that stating heights from the past can be provocative, so deliberately used examples that are 'commonly given' – I have no problem with data that shows that whereas 5'4" or 6" may be commonly given, _soldiers might be 5'8" or so.

Of course my comment was re an assumption that the 15mm man was intended to be a scaled model of _6' individual (and that that then meant 15mm was ever – or ever meant to be – 1:120) ..

Phil

Over the years I have settled on 1/100 scale gaming. Which means that a fig should be something like 16 mm sole to eye, accounting for most people being under 6' tall. Net result is that Blue Moon (and some of Khurusans releases) are just a tad too tall, but most other 15mm manufacturers are close enough.

Phil has it. Figs 15mm to the eye, vehicles 1/100th for aesthetic reasons only. If you scale creep 15mm too much the vehicles then look silly. Thanks Phil.

@ Marc the plastic fan.

Here is an AB US Inf guy compared to some 1/72 plastic companies

Don't forget guys, it's the most important thing that the equipment is the same size, people are all sorts of different size after all. It's easy to get worried about this sort of thing but the models above would all look fine together on a table in my mind.

What Zoring said, I couldn't care less if some of my figs are shorter or taller than average, just that the equipment is all the same size.

LOL @ Zoring. That picture is exactly why I don't sweat scale. Some people have a snit when you try to mix 28mm with 28mm heroic and 32mm…. I just say some are short and some are tall.

I'm 6'6" IRL, so it amuses me.

On the other hand, for many enthusiasts, a certain consistency helps them maintain the illusion they are looking for. Which is fine.

As above, equipment should be a constant, and as, personally, I have no interest in skirmish gaming, my preference is for groups of figures that are all, there or there abouts, around the norm, not the very rare freak pictures that some people like to send to threads like this – sure they are 'real' … but they are also posed and circulated because they are non-standard.

I think it is fair to say that (a) I have never seen an authentic combat pic that shows that kind of deviation from average (b) their equipment is not scale crept, and (c) once you get those guys crouching the differences will become far less pronounced.

Of course, this thread was not really about what size are real people but about what size was accepted ( what is the proper height as Khurasan put it)…

Phil
P.B.Eye-Candy

As long as the kit items are all the same size, I really don't care how big/tall the soldier model is.

I admit that I don't entirely like mixing some makes of minis, because they're pushing the edge of +-1 head height that I used for my standard tolerance.

Actually the "scale" for 15mm wanders all the time.

It used to be 1:120 then someone measured BattleFront stuff and declared it to be really 1:107, later that got rounded to 1:100. Recently the new Martian v. Earth game set in the 1920's claimed it was 15mm with an actual scale of 1:87.

15mm wanders because unlike "20mm" it was not tied to a model scale (either 1:72 or 1:76). Variations in figures not a big deal though you will notice (a bit) differences between vehicles (1:72 or 1:76). (Sometimes smaller helmets look odd between say old SHQ and Britania.)

Interesting that "15mm" now catching up with old mini-tanks scale where most of we 20mm guys started.

TomT

It used to be 1:120 then someone measured BattleFront stuff and declared it to be really 1:107

I don't think it was ever 1/120. The original WW2 range from Quality Castings was 1/108, but the early UK firms like Peter Pig and SDD went with 1/100. AFAIK Skytrex/Old Glory, Battlefront et al followed suit. Quality Castings when they redid their ranges went with 1/100 and it has now become the norm.

Yesthatphil, sure the photo was more of an excuse to post a picture of myself in here (the tall one) :P But it was just to highlight the fact that you shouldn't sweat the small stuff. The soldiers Sigwald posted all work well together in my mind.

A much more common deviance in height range is about a head give or take, personally I myself wouldn't use a figure that was a whole head smaller than another! Here is a good combat photo (or near combat) of some chaps, the two guys in front are at around a head taller than the guys in back.

Also bonus pantslessness

Non staged photo of guys showing similar height deviation too my reenactor photo

Oddly enough, since the Germans had sized helmets and the Americans had one size fits all a shorter German should have a marginally smaller helmet, whilst a smaller americans helmet should be proportionally bigger to him (not that you would bother with that in miniature scale!)

I don't mind different sized figures so long as the equipment is consistent…

If you make your vehicle masters to 1?100 scale then small variations in mould shrinkage or casting shrinkage (which are variable on a lot of factors, such as the temperature, type of mould, composition of metal, cooling rates, etc) mean that it won't be bigger than 1/100 scale, and will likely be slightly smaller.

'15mm' infantry are cast on bases that vary from half to 2mm thick. This can distort the perfectionist visual perspective, espcially looking at infantry standing next to vehicles when compared to photos.

Another thing is the pose, as very few figures are bolt upright, thus really a 15mm figure should never be taller than 15mm, and certainly not approaching 18mm. (Technically, of course, 18mm is closer to 20mm than it is to 15mm)

I must buy myself some of those ABs someday soon – if I understand correctly they have transferred to Eureka – UK distributor?

And size – Phil, i like the cut of your jib (sp) – but then I find even the 1/72 plastic manufacturers cannot agree on how big a rifle should be. But once on the table, as long as they are close, i can live with it. And I notice it less with WW2 as the figures are more dispersed, than (perhaps as Phil was saying) with ranked guys, where "silly" differences can stand out quite a bit.

'15mm' infantry are cast on bases that vary from half to 2mm thick. This can distort the perfectionist visual perspective, espcially looking at infantry standing next to vehicles when compared to photos.

This is a good point!

I much prefer the thin bases like on AB Napoleonics or Eureka's scifi Germans to the thick ones like Minifigs or Battlefront, especially when I'm single-basing models instead of team basing.

So my request to figure sculptors is to please use the thinnest base that will cast reliably!

Oh, one other criteria: please make the base larger than 3mm in diameter, so that I don't need to put a strip of paper over the hole in the washer!

The original 15mm were Minifigs "Stick figures" (called that because they were cast 5 to a base and had to be cut apart). I have a bunch at home and can measure them from base to height of eye when I get home if anyone really cares. They were short though. IIR the next big range to come out were the Heritage series, maybe a little bigger than the stick figures but beautifully detailed. Minifigs revamped their line a little taller than the Heritage and the size race was on.

I agree with Zoring too,my figures always reflect the fact that people are different in height etc…but mostly they are 28mm from base to eye level.

Marc,

Fighting 15s are the UK distributor for AB/Eureka Miniatures.

I have little problem with the mixing of 15mm w 20mm w 25mm etc--up to a point
I do not think that one could get away with mixing say 10mm w 20mm, indeed, it is also a stretch to mix 15mm w 25/28mm
and then there's this--while we can look at the photos and see the differences in heights of the humans, the troops, their weapons--from the rifle to the tank, remain the same--so a small Japanese(using 20mm figs) should be represented with a seemingly large weapon, while a larger Japanese should be carrying a seemingly smaller weapon--indeed, in war time photos, Japanese troops carried what seemed to be a long rifle--which seemed to grow smaller in the hands of American troops
The Russian company that produces 1/72 figures and 1/100 vehicles--well that's ok as long as you do not try to mix the 1/100 with say 1/87 or 1/56(15mm, 20mm and 28mm respectively) So this idea of mixing different sizes/scales of infantry figures works some of the time(if you ignore the fact that somehow the Mauser rifle gets bigger w the 28mm fig and smaller w the 20mm fig--but you simply cannot do this with the vehicles, especially trying to mix a 25mm Sherman w a 15mm Sherman--not only would the purists revolt, but a mixing of vehicle sizes looks strange to the non-purist
But what am I saying? The whole figure to ground c\scale that is in every miniatures game, save some skirmish games, presents huge distortion that the usual miniature gamer, and a lot of not so usual, have become accustomed to or tolerant of-say, the "platoons" of tanks represented by one model, made worse by the fact that the model is 25/28mm--the "platoons of infantry represented by two infantry figures on a one inch base(Command Decision)--they look like two skirmishers--no way a platoon--or the usual nonsense of two tank pieces (15,20,25,28mm doesn't matter), even representing only one vehicle, 12 inches from each other the distance between them supposedly 1200 yds, or even 600 yds--the individual vehicles are the size of a large apartment block in scale
This kind of moveable art evokes Escher or Dali--it undercuts the so called simulation value--the visual relationships are way off--the vehicles in photos at those distances are almost, well, 2mm or 6mm figure size--and at that distance, well, in E B Sledge's With the Old Breed, is Eugene's observation of some vehicles on the Japanese area, and he asks why those "amtracs" are over there, until they move and he gets another look--they are Japanese tanks
But in few miniatures games would a Marine ever mistake those vehicles for his own--the gamer simply leans over to see what the painted figure is and consults his rule book for all available info--something that Sledge could never do. So the question of the proper size of infantry figures becomes, well, mostly irrelevant considering the other factors and features of the way we portray battle in the hobby

huh?