Post by Brian Cameron on May 9, 2022 12:21:06 GMT
I was sat in the garden yesterday (re)reading, appropriately, Little Wars and Floor Games as I’ve recently finished the revised edition of Funny Little Wars. Mr Wells comments “The best British makers have standardised sizes, and sell infantry and cavalry in exactly proportioned dimensions; the infantry being nearly two inches tall”. Now 2”, in this new-fangled metric, is 50.8mm and clearly Mr Wells found they were short of that. Measuring a Britain’s Dismounted Horse Guard and a guardsman I discovered that they are just about 48mm tall, measured to the top of their head.
(Permit me to pause for a moment and have a quick rant about this notion of measuring from the bottom of the foot to the eye. Over the years I’ve had my height measured (too) many times in various hospitals and never once have I been poked in the eye with the measuring gauge. I believe this ‘measuring to the eye’ notion came about because of a claimed difficulty in deciding where the position of the top of the head when a chap is wearing a shako or whatever. This is fallacious reasoning: anyone with a passing familiarity with anatomical proportions will be aware that the eyes are half way up the head so the top of the head is easy to calculate. I’d have thought that so few of these chaps being properly stood at attention would be more of a problem.)
So Britain’s more recent products that are suitable for Little Wars (ie dating from the 1960s, probably 50s) are clearly as described by Mr Wells. The ‘Detail’ range (with their metal bases and bendy weapons which I dislike) is a similar size as are the products of Airfix though they may be a millimetre or two taller. AiP seem a similar size to Airfix. So why are figures of this size often referred to as 54mm? I shan’t sleep at night until I know!
Brian
