Ronan the Librarian wrote:Hi Sergio,
Yes, take a look at Greystreak's Russians as they provide a good "middle ground" between historically accurate length and sufficient length to show off a unit's flags without looking like Thirty Years' War pikemen.
Most infantry flagstaffs were around 8-10 feet (2.5-3.0 metres) from top to bottom, including finials etc. This meant that the flag would typically cover 1/2 (French sizes) to 2/3 (British) of the flagpole, with most nations somewhere in between those figures. British flags were slightly over 6 feet (1.80 metres) square, and were usually carried into battle half-furled - so you could just see the central badge/wreath in the middle - in order that they could be managed one-handed, leaving the ensign's other hand free to use his sword. They certainly were not vigorously waved about as some wargamers insist on depicting them!
Unfortunately, most of the miniature flags available to us are too big, so wargamers are left with no choice but to use flagpoles that are 12-14 feet (3.5-4.0 metres) in scale terms, which - in my view - looks particularly bad on cavalry with their smaller flags. As I said, Greystreak's models are a good compromise.
RtL
Hi Ronan,
many thanks for the clarification.
The measures suggested by Greystreak seem to me a little "short".
Front Rank puts in the envelopes of the miniatures rods longs 10 cm for the Infantry and 7 cm for Cavalry.
I wondered if they were the correct measurements.
For flags, currently made by us only for the units of the SSW, we used the following measures: 4 cm for Infantry and to 2.5 cm for Cavalry. These measures relate to the height, the length then comes from the shape of the flag, which is not always a square.
Do you think that such measures may be fine even for the Napoleonic period?
For the SSW period, we used rods long 8 cm for Infantry, while for the Cavalry we used the heavy spears of Medieval Knights.
For the flags for our Napoleonics (at the time French and English) we are planning to order them to this company:
http://www.gmbdesigns.com/
Do You know it by accident. Have you already ordered flags to them? Is it reliable?
Many thanks.
Cheers,
Sergio