Question - how many men per mile?

[born2see]

Little Powell wrote:

Yeah I believe that 100 yard rule is for an average size regiment which is 1,000 men

That means we're talking about 85,000 for 5 miles; the size of the Army of the Potomac.

B

[born2see]

Wait a minute. That can't be right. 100 yards is 300 feet. How are you going to get 1000 men in that space? Even if they are in a double line that's 500 men in 300 feet or 300/500 or 7.2 inches per man.


I just measured myself and D is right. I'm about 2 feet across so with an 18" gap between men so that's 3.5 feet per man. Here are my revised numbers:

If a mile is 5280 feet then it's 5280 feet divided by 3.5 feet per man which equals 1508 men per mile. Multiply that by 2 for two ranks and that = 3016 men per mile. Multiply that times 5 for five miles and you get 15,080 men stretched across 5 miles in two ranks.

Those are my numbers and I'm sticking to 'em.

B

PS: Any of you re-enactors out there, please help us out.

[Little Powell]

Ah well maybe it was giving 500 men as the average regiment for that 100 yard rule. That would probably make more sense because a 1,000 man regiment was rare except at the very beginning of the war. Most regiments were anywhere from 300-600.

[born2see]

Little Powell wrote:

Ah well maybe it was giving 500 men as the average regiment for that 100 yard rule. That would probably make more sense because a 1,000 man regiment was rare except at the very beginning of the war. Most regiments were anywhere from 300-600.

I can't find anything on the spacing of a civil war battle line but I did see that a Roman battle line required 3 feet per man.

I guess if you weren't standing shoulder to shoulder but just had your left or right side exposed to the enemy you could get a lot more men per 100 yards.

The re-enactors should be able to enlighten us.

B

[Davinci]

This isn't exactly answering your question, but roughly 17 regiments would be a mile in length. Even though the scale of the soldiers in the game is 3 to 1, the map scale matches the troop scale.

Yes, I forgot to allow for the scale of men in my calculations.

So if we say 500 per regiment arrayed in double line formation that's 8500 per mile. For 5 miles that would be 42,500.

So I'm way off, D is much closer.

And I've worn my poor brain out why, D? :S

I just measured myself and D is right. I'm about 2 feet across so with an 18" gap between men so that's 3.5 feet per man. Here are my revised numbers:

If a mile is 5280 feet then it's 5280 feet divided by 3.5 feet per man which equals 1508 men per mile. Multiply that by 2 for two ranks and that = 3016 men per mile. Multiply that times 5 for five miles and you get 15,080 men stretched across 5 miles in two ranks.

I still say that that is wrong, if that is correct, why was it that Sickles stated that he couldn’t hold the ground that was assigned to him with the 10,000 men that he had in his corps.

This ground didn’t cover more than a mile, roughly 1600 yards .

It has to be a way of figuring this out!

davinci

[born2see]

Davinci wrote:

I still say that that is wrong, if that is correct, why was it that Sickles stated that he couldn’t hold the ground that was assigned to him with the 10,000 men that he had in his corps.

We're talking about different things here. Sickles didn't just have a double rank stretched along a single line. You asked if your math was right for that. You didn't ask how many men could be deployed in a given area.

I'm just saying if you line up human beings side by side with a foot and a half between them then this is how many you can fit.

Think of an officer inspecting troops and you see the formation I'm talking about.

B



[/quote]

[Davinci]

We're talking about different things here. Sickles didn't just have a double rank stretched along a single line. You asked if your math was right for that. You didn't ask how many men could be deployed in a given area.

I'm just saying if you line up human beings side by side with a foot and a half between them then this is how many you can fit.

That would be true, I’m just trying to match the terrain with the amount of men and this would roughly give me the size of the men for the terrain.

As of now, I can put roughly 30,000 men across the map, but some of the ranks are three and four deep, so this is only a rough estimate.

But, all of my men and the terrain are twice the size of the default graphics. This is why I don’t play the game with the fences and the houses; they are not moddable at this time.

So basically what ever my numbers are your numbers would be mine x two !

davinci

[Marching Thru Georgia]

This is very sad.
Is it any wonder America is in a race to the educational bottom.

Using born2see's numbers: each man width:36" + space between men 18" = 54" /12inches/ft = 4.5 feet.
1 mile = 5280 ft. * 5 = 26400ft in 5 miles.

# of men in 5 miles = 26400/4.5 = 5867 men.

[Hancock the Superb]

Here are the numbers you may be looking for.

First of all, your sprite ratio must be 1:1. Otherwise, everything is going to be rather small.

Here are the values I used to make company formations with correct distances:

ROW1.93 COL1.6

This gives the impression that the men are 13" from rear of front line to front of second line (including width of men, cause these are 2D sprites). This is also the standard width of a man, roughly 2.5 feet touching elbow to elbow, in typical fashion.

I am still working on this company level mod that gives the absolutely correct formations (all men in exactly the right position), so I cannot lend it to you yet.

However, this only gives you the distance as each individual sprite views it. The game distance (due to the discrepancies between sprite size and terrain size and movement speeds, will be different.

I am also in the work of creating maps (as soon as we finally will be able to use them) that fit this mod exactly.

Although this isn't quite what you were looking for, using those numbers ought to give you a rough idea for how big a regiment actually was, man for man, but it will not give you a good indication of game distance, unfortunately.

[born2see]

Marching Thru Georgia wrote:

This is very sad.
Is it any wonder America is in a race to the educational bottom.

Don't blame the American educational system for my calculations. I'm a product of it when it was the best in the world. I'm just a bozo.

B