Calculating !!! (1 Viewer)

[Fraxinus]

I have decided to build a scale replica of Fort William Henry suitable for displaying my figures!!! Personally, I think it is a brillant idea!!

Step 1: Find a blueprint of Fort Willaim Henry!!! --- Found it!!!

Step 2: Get the card table out to build the Fort on !!! ---- Found it!!!! And do not worry, it is a very sturdy card table!!!

Step 3: Scale out the Fort Walls and Ditch and transfer them to the top of the card table!!!! I do not anticpate any problems here. I wrote a simpe Excel program for the measurement conversions.

Hmmmm!!! Checking the math here!! Double Checking the Math!!!!

Ok, 13.3 feet by 13.3 feet.

Does anyone know where I can get a card table this big?

 

[wds0855]

That sounds very ambitious. And great idea!

I would use the "Last of the Mohicans" movie for inspiration.

Walt

 

[Fraxinus]

Ok, it is me kidding around again in my warped way. The scale calculations are correct, it would need to be about 13.5 feet by 13.5 feet. Which would make it mucher larger than the guest room. And totally and completely impratical. Total Fantasy.

 

[thebritfarmer]

Ok, it is me kidding around again in my warped way. The scale calculations are correct, it would need to be about 13.5 feet by 13.5 feet. Which would make it mucher larger than the guest room. And totally and completely impratical. Total Fantasy.

HA HA HA but think of the fun you would have!!

 

[Fraxinus]

If you want to see a model of Fort William Henry try Tm Terrain - Gallery Tab (left hand column) and then the 18th Century Tab - 2 photos, plus some other un-named forts.

Walls were 30-foot thick. At the tread of the banquette where the soldiers stood, the wall as still 15-foot thick. You can clearly see how thick the walls are in those pictures. So at our toy soldier scale, the walls would be 1-foot thick if properly modelled.

As the French were able to smash the walls in only a few days of bombardment, it clearly illustrates that 18th century cannon balls and mortar rounds really, really did hurt !!!!

http://www.tmterrain.com/

 

[marco55]

SSROC1 had had a corner section of Ft.Wm. Henry made and I almost bought it. John Jenkins himself ended up getting it.
Mark

 

[Hans]

SSROC1 had had a corner section of Ft.Wm. Henry made and I almost bought it. John Jenkins himself ended up getting it.
Mark

Have another idea: build the Fort in size 1:1 - much more fun, be sure!

 

[Fraxinus]

On the TM Terrain page, gallery, check out the 54 MM page, some JJ figures and interesting stuff for the various structures -- logs under the cabins, think flexi-bark on the fort walls, but unsure, neat window possibilities.

http://www.tmterrain.com/

 

[ssorc1]

Step 1: Find a blueprint of Fort Willaim Henry!!! --- Found it!!!

As Mark mentioned I had a section of Fort William Henry built for me once at 40mm for some wargame figures - the Miniature Srvice Center built it from some computer drawings I had based on actual blueprints. It did sell to Mr. Jenkins and I believe he had plans to finish it or add to it at least. I switched to 54mm when his figures started coming out so now I need a 54mm Fort William. Did you say you had a blueprint? Would it be possible to get a copy of that blueprint? I've been scaling up a diagram I have - which is very small. It would be greatly appreciated. Would be nice to have the whole fort in scale but I don't believe anyone including most museums have the room for that at 54-60mm. Cheers. ssorc1

 

[Fraxinus]

http://www.masshist.org/maps/PlansandForts/PlansAndFortsFront.htm

Try this site. It will have a decent plan for Fort William Henry, other forts as well. See Sheet 26 of the Atlas. There are two different depictions of William Henry, one is just of the fort proper and is likely to be useful. The other shows the fort plus the surrounding area and detail is lost.

Fort William Henry is about 375 feet per side. Because of the thickness of the walls, this size is the minimum size for a 4-pointed bastion fort without developing blind spots along the walls, especially in the center of the curtain walls. Essentially, with these thick wall forts, the blind spot in front of the walls is about 6-times the height of the walls. A 12-foot high wall, that is thick so you can't look over, would have a 72-foot blind spot out on front of the wall.

Each bastion point and flanks defends the adjacent points. So once, the bastions get far enough apart, you will be able to see the center point of the curtain wall from both of the adjacent bastions. This minimum distance is abut 350-375 feet, from bastion point to bastion point, assuming a wall height of 12 feet.

Alternatively, you can make shorter walls, but then you need demilunes or ravelins to defend against the blind spots such as with Fort Duquesne -- additional structures beyond the bastion walls. With Fort Duquesne, the thick wall sides have ravelins, whereas the more simply stockade sides do not have the ravelins. This was needed because the bastion walls were only about 160 feet long. Besides, Fort Duquesne had at least 1 additional stockade wall around the bastion fort.

The British Engineer who built Fort Edward, Captain Eyre, simply followed the engineering protocols of the day and built a fort accordingly to best practices with the materials he had available. All-in-all, it was a stout fort of good design. Much better then Ticonderoga, which had a series of design flaws.

If interested in fortifications, google --- civil war fortifications and once at the web site, look thorough the Dictionary, great great page. The link is http://civilwarfortifications.com/dictionary/dictionary.html

Try the topics BASTION< STANDARD METHOD OF TRACING and for fun PENETRATION, SOLID SHOT.

Lots of other topics covered --- like TRENCH vs DITCH!!!

 

[Fraxinus]

http://www.fortligonier.org/original.htm

This is a "watercolor" of Fort Ligionier done in 1762. Note, the walls are not vertical but have a definite angle to them, something I was not expecting to see.

And it really does look solid, cozy and a very good place to hide!!! No frill construction. The lack of cannon embrasures has me puzzled or they are just were not depicted in the painting.

In addition, there are lots of great photographs in their gallery and you can take a virtual tour. In many of the photos you can see how the front face and back face of each wall are regularly connected with cross-timbers - the regular "notches' you see in the walls. The space between the walls would backfilled with earth and stone.

And best of all, they have their very own Howitzer!!! See the artillery tab!!

 

[ssorc1]

http://www.masshist.org/maps/PlansandForts/PlansAndFortsFront.htm

Try this site. It will have a decent plan for Fort William Henry, other forts as well. See Sheet 26 of the Atlas. There are two different depictions of William Henry, one is just of the fort proper and is likely to be useful. The other shows the fort plus the surrounding area and detail is lost.

That's great. Thanks very much. I have some reference on the fort from the Seymour Schwartz book. It's full of maps etc. but very small and hard to determine scale with - unless I scan it and size it up. This will come in handy.
Much appreciated. Thanks also for the Ligonier link. Cheers.