12 of 24 soldiers had too much ale and fell asleep. Only 12 soldiers remained awake and the Mayor told them: “You’ve got to step up for your partners! Put yourself in 6 lines with 4 soldiers in each line. You have until dawn, or the entire platoon will be discharged!”
Thanks to one soldier who drew the solution out on a piece of paper, the platoon survived.
What did he draw?
Thanks for Suineg for submitting 
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test
A star gives 5 lines of 4 soldiers using 10 men.
adding 2 soldiers parallel to any unconnected men in the middle pentagram will give a 6th line of 4 men.
see image:
http://bobg.net/star.jpg
It wasn’t until I drew it myself that I worked it out.
x x x x
x x
x x
x x x x
Line them up in a Star of David pattern with a soldier at each point and another at each intersection.
One of the possible patterns:
http://bayimg.com/kaaFlAaEj
hexagram
The two answers ara correct:
1) Hexagram or David Star
2) Regular Star plus one line using two points of the star
If the 4 soldiers should have been equidistant, the optimal solution would have been the hexagram or the David Star
Cool man!!
Of course I meant
xxxx
.xx
.xx
xxxx
the spaces disappeared when I posted.
Yet another solution (I’ll have to describe verbally):
Draw 15 points in an equilateral triangle formation (like the balls in a rack for a game of 8-ball). Designate one row “1″, the second row “2,3″, the third “4,5,6″, and so on. Then remove points 4, 6, and 13.
The six rows of four are:
1,2,7,11
3,5,8,12
1,3,10,15
2,5,9,14
7,8,9,10
11,12,14,15
And I imagine that there are others out there, as well.
Very interesting solution Bobo the Bear, I agree with your argument of a plethora of solutions
Star of David w/ man @ each vertex.