1966; World War One British Infantry, S27 / 01727 / 01727-1 / 9 01727 / 90.1727 / A01727 / 7002 - HO/OO

Another set I liked as a kid, some people whinge about the wiring party, but anyone whose used 'Danet Wire' knows it still comes on rolls like those depicted, and remains to this day a basic item of 'defence stores' in the British army.

Whole Sprue, this is a modern re-issue by/for HaT/Heller/Humbrol/Hornby but happens to be close to the original colour.

A set, set-up as a kid would way back when, the support weapons sets were a complete bugger to keep set-up, and a hot pin was often resorted to as the last resort of a desperate parent!

1967/4th catalogue, the first mention of the British infantry, the Germans got a picture, but a quick perusal of that entry will show it wasn't quite what it seemed!

The Index-card displays were next, with some sets illustrated and others just listed in alternating catalogues for the few next years...

...except the Brits got a full frontal box-art image the next year!

Then came my favourites, the 'line-up' with one of each pose attacking the reader as he perused his catalogue and built mental Christmas and Birthday wish-lists!

1980 sees loft-conversion minimalism, but at least a decent picture (we'd had what you'd now call 'thumbnails' for nearly a decade), taken from the long boxes, this was the swan-song for Airfix, who were on the way out.

1982 German catalogue, again the little pictures from the back of a long-box, blown-up.

The Franco-Irish marketing conglomerate that owned the Airfix brand-name and assets thought they'd have a go, I guess someone in the graphic department was very pleased with the 'eighties' sky-scape! It's St. Elmo's fire!

Right Lads, when we get near the German trench I want you all to switch hands!

Airfix/Stadden, the similarity is clearer on the kneeling figure, but a lot of the cloth-folds and so on are typically Stadden, however they are finished to a higher standard, but that will be due to the larger size of the Airfix masters while the Tradition stuff would have been sculpted same-size as the final moulding.

Mould-purge? Again that Cowboy-brown, not a clear as the American though, (see their entry), this could just be staining, but it does seem to have entered the mould from the bottom and moved up the legs...

HaT, one of three box types for WWI 7000-series re-issues, I don't know if they did all sets in each box?

Plastic colours and painting; the wiring party is often damaged, but can be turned into two more guys flinging themselves pointlessly across no-mans land, or a single guy dragging a roll of Danet.

Support weapons teams, hard to get together, but nice little vignettes and nothing like them had been seen when they came out, people forget, with all the Rumanians and Sherden warriors available to day, how totally radical these where...now just pure nostalgia!

Upper shot - One of the real problems with these is the natural choke-point or accidental 'gate' in the moulding at the ankle which leads to lots of the lying firers turning-up with no foot! Although the instructions in the modelling press and associated books always stated 'use a sharp craft knife to separate the figures from their runners', the truth is, most pre-teen boys given these figures soon learned to twist the figures off and then snip the snub/stub residue with a finger-nail...having never read the modelling press! When they were given this set (or the British Grenadiers, French Napoleonic Infantry...and others!), they proceeded in the usual manner...loosing feet in the process!

You can see they have both failed in the same place, so there was also clearly a weak-point there, created in the moulding process.

Below them are a nicely-painted set of OBE's...in  an odd colour scheme? Perhaps Chinese troops or something? Yeomanry?

Emhar from Pocketbond, as disappointing as the German Infantry set, and the influence of Airfix definitely present in the ammo/tool-box party!

1966 World War One French Infantry, S28 / 1728 / 01728 / 01728-4 / A01728 / 7003 - HO/OO

Colour and pose variations and a Stadden comparison shot

Full set and some paint

Bit of gloss-red 'enhancing' this one!

Montaplex

Hat - both box types + Whole sprue and colour variant.

The larger figure is known to come in a Ri-Toys (Rado Industrial Co., Hong Kong) bag, so probably the source for all the above?

 

Having collected these for over forty years now, I think it's fair to claim these are all the colours they were issued in, but you never know with Hong Kong production, another colour altogether might have been sent to/issued in Peru, or Ulaanbaatar!

 

Another sample, these dun-brown or pale olive colours seem to be the commonest ones, especially with the larger 50mm versions. Although the greens are quite common too, the blue I have only found once, but it was larger enough to give me all the poses I think?

A painted-up sample of the 50mm, Rado figures, representing later-war figures in Khaki, they have only just received their new uniforms and still have the blue-grey helmets!

Colour variants; above we have three Airfix and a Hät Industries in blue, below the three Airfix colours, a brownish-grey, a mid-grey and a darker one which seems to have been formed by leaching of one of the additives, creating a layer of darker material, which play has worn-off unevenly.

 

 

English Civil War / 30 Year's War type musketeer, converted from a WWI Frenchman, some other bugger's effort, not mine, the rest of the unknown modeller/wargamer's army were converted from Robin Hood and Sheriff of Nottingham figures, and will be seen on those pages.

A couple more OBE's which have come-in, showing the difference between earlier and latter-war uniforms, in so far as simple home-paint at the amateur end of the spectrum can!

Barravelli from Italy copied the standard-bearer (or got someone in Hong Kong to copy it for them), but it's such a poor quality, that by the time the skirt of the greatcoat was stripped-away, he looks more like the Airfix Japanese Infantry standard-bearer!