Show Posts
1246
Work In Progress / Re: German AA/AT Guns - FlaK 36/37 initial drawing 171201
« on: December 05, 2017, 03:31:12 am »
I only entered the hobby in 1984 and (as you might guess) live in the UK, so they are brands I had never heard of.
Interesting timeline here:http://www-personal.umich.edu/~beattie/timeline2.html
"20mm" has an interesting history, which is mentioned in passing in the above link. There is a reference to HO (also known as 3.5mm to the foot) as the US figures.
Due to (traditionally) United Kingdom railways having a smaller loading gauge than Continental railways it was not possible to get the mechanism into the 1/87 scale body shells (this version is occasionally disputed, though it is also repeated for N Gauge). The choice was made to use the scale of 4mm to the foot (or 1/76 scale), also known as OO gauge (which is 16.5mm gauge but 4mm to the foot scale - so narrow gauge of four foot one and half inches).
That means that the UK small figures (Airfix branded their figures as HO/OO but were 1/76) were bigger than true HO at 1/87.
A man 20mm tall is about five foot eight inches in HO, but only five foot in OO.
Of course the additional confusion of 1/72 scale (which I guess is the equivalent of US O Gauge scale of 1/48 due to US modellers not wanting to mix measurement systems) which requires a figure between 24 to 25mm to the top of the head.
Model railway wise the next scale is S Gauge at 1/64 scale which traditionally in the UK is thought to be 25mm scale.
I remember the Twilight 2000 figures being tiny compared to the Platoon 20 figures because the former were 1/87.
Interesting timeline here:http://www-personal.umich.edu/~beattie/timeline2.html
"20mm" has an interesting history, which is mentioned in passing in the above link. There is a reference to HO (also known as 3.5mm to the foot) as the US figures.
Due to (traditionally) United Kingdom railways having a smaller loading gauge than Continental railways it was not possible to get the mechanism into the 1/87 scale body shells (this version is occasionally disputed, though it is also repeated for N Gauge). The choice was made to use the scale of 4mm to the foot (or 1/76 scale), also known as OO gauge (which is 16.5mm gauge but 4mm to the foot scale - so narrow gauge of four foot one and half inches).
That means that the UK small figures (Airfix branded their figures as HO/OO but were 1/76) were bigger than true HO at 1/87.
A man 20mm tall is about five foot eight inches in HO, but only five foot in OO.
Of course the additional confusion of 1/72 scale (which I guess is the equivalent of US O Gauge scale of 1/48 due to US modellers not wanting to mix measurement systems) which requires a figure between 24 to 25mm to the top of the head.
Model railway wise the next scale is S Gauge at 1/64 scale which traditionally in the UK is thought to be 25mm scale.
I remember the Twilight 2000 figures being tiny compared to the Platoon 20 figures because the former were 1/87.
