Okay, I'll admit it. I'm a bit confused here. Simply because the last time I checked, a wheel is based on the circumference of a circle and not a right angle triangle. Or am I missing something here. It certainly wouldn't be the first time, that's for sure ;-)
From the diagram above, looks like if you use the above template your wheeling maneuvers will be shorter than what they should be. For example, lets take a cavalry unit of four bases in Line formation... oops sorry, "Abreast" formation. Using the template above, if you wheel four BW, the unit will end up at a 45 degrees angle from its starting point - using the formulas for a right angle triangle will verify this. However, the true angle should be 57.3 degrees since the unit is moving on the circle.
Remember, the angle A = (C/2pL)x360
C = circumference
p = pi (or simply 3.14)
L = length in BW of the unit
If we plug in our values; that is C = 4BW for the wheel, and L = 4BW for the cavalry unit in abreast formation, we get:
(4/2p4)x360 = 57.3 degrees
But what's 12.3 degrees between friends? Also, the longer the length (L) and the shorter the wheel (C), the smaller the error margin. For example, a six base infantry unit in Line wheels 2BW. Plug in these numbers and we get:
(2/2p6)x360 = 19.1 degrees.
Using the template above (and right angle triangle formulas) we get an angle of 18.4 degrees.
I guess if everyone uses the same method of wheeling, then everyone's wheeling distances will be the same. But like I said before, maybe I'm missing something in regards to how the template above is used.
