1977; [Cold War] Modern British Infantry, 51472-9 / 51572-8 / 9 51572 / 51572 / A02718 - 1:32 Scale (54mm)

Announced in the autumn of 1975 (1976 catalogue) I think, they wouldn't actually see the light of day until 1977, the modern Brit's, along with the Modern Germans and the Medieval Soldiers were among our favourite sets, even if they arrived toward the end of our 'playing' days.

Obviously with a too-long wait for the modern Russians and US troops, the scenario tended to involve the NATO Germans 'going bad' and having to be sorted out by the British set, a bit jingoistic maybe, but; kids huh?!

Limited to only seven poses, they were otherwise  a quite good representation of the British squaddie of the day, and only a few years later (1984) I would myself be garbed in a similar fashion! Consequently I know the weaknesses in the set only too well, and they aren't vast.

We'll look at the webbing/PLCE further down, but suffice to say the gunner is holding the bi-pod legs which he wouldn't because they just come-unclipped and spring-open, if you're going to hold them you hold them more firmly as a 'handle' away from the barrel, also they haven't been sculpted substantially enough, but it's a minor quibble.

More serious is the anti-tank gunner, who should be holding something several times the size! The Karl Gustav 84mm was a huge beast with idiot-legs on a big spring while it's replacement - the MAW80 (Medium Antitank Weapon) was A) equally huge and B) still years away when these were issued, so, like Cherilea's swoppets, the weapon depicted here is a fantasy 'Euroweapon' of the artists imagination, based on a conglomeration of any number of other weapons.

Puttee's would be phased-out quite soon after the issue of this set also; instantly dating it!

The real problem with the set is the belt-order, there are three basic types of belt-order, which - in order of lightness - are;

•  Range-day
• CEFO (Combat Equipment, Fighting Order) 
• CEMO (Combat Equipment, Movement (or 'moving' or 'marching') Order)

Range order would be the two front pouches, a water bottle and - depending upon the whim of the officer or NCO-commanding - the respirator case. Dropping the respirator case was rare (as we had to be ready for WWIII to break out in six minutes - even on a quiet day!), but did occasionally happen.

'Cefo' consisted of all pouches, but no packs or digging tools, while 'Cemo' was the whole bloody enchilada, the full donkey-load, large pack or 'Burgan' and digging tool with probably 50-rounds for the GPMG, maybe a couple of mortar bombs or a grenade or two and (if your luck was in) a spare battery for the radio!

These guys, without exception, have no water bottle pouch (always present) and no respirator case; almost always present? Now I think I'm repeating myself here, as the same criticism is true of the Deetail/Super Deetail figures from Britains, who we've seen on the home-Blog several times . . . and the explanation may have been the same there; the limitations of sculpting?

To wit; that there is no room in the relatively inflexible world of moulded (set) polymers for the respirator case at least, the water bottle should be there, and there is room?

Having just mentioned them; the first of what will be few comparisons, I'm not going to run them next to all that 1950's 'Khaki Infantry' output, they are two far removed from what the Airfix set represents, but maybe we'll look at the late HK additions to Herald's set?

Here you can see the Deetail figures suffer from the same lack of both water bottle pouch and respirator case, but do have the kidney-pouches closer together which is more accurate than the gap seen on Airfix's figures. He's a slightly better pose to, leaning into the recoil.

With all four common or 'production' poses; as mentioned already both ATW firers have some weird thing referencing most of the weapons of the time (1980's), but both are far too small to be the Karl Gustav 84mm of British army use at the time (and the SAS wouldn't have bothered faffing about with such an unwieldy lump of heavy shite), yet are equally too large to be the 'sixty-six' (mm) licence-built US 'Bunker Buster' or 'door-knocker', which doesn't have a venturi either - the cone-shaped bit at the rear.

You can see the Britains figures are heading toward 60mm, and while some of that is explained by the deep, die-cast alloy bases, not all of it is and they are actually quite big lads!

The gunner; as one myself, it's obviously my favourite pose of the seven, but the belt of link round the shoulders is a bit Audey Murphy, good in movies and likely to be seen in the ranks of the late 'Mad' Mike Hoare's mercenaries or their Katangese opponents, but frowned upon in the British Army.

A short belt (15-20 rounds) would be carried in the gun, ready for immediate action / return of fire, the rest of at least 200 rounds would be in the front pouches, with the No.2 having another minimum of 200 on his person (along with his four magazines of 20 for the SLR), the rest of the section being loaded with a minimum of 50-round (quarter) belts each.

The reasons for not carrying belts around like this are myriad, but the obvious ones are;

• Rounds get dirty/damaged and jam the mechanism when used
• Links get semi-parted/stuck/damaged and jam the mechanism when used
• Links break fully and rounds are lost
• Belt gets hooked up on equipment and can't be used quickly
• Belt gets hooked up on equipment which then can't be used quickly
• Percussion cap is accidentally detonated leading to injury or death of gunner or comrade/s
• Can be seen by snipers from miles away
• Are bloody uncomfortable after the first twenty yards
• The rounds and the carrying-strap (missing on the above sculpt but utterly necessary when carrying 26lb's of steel around) can't - practically - occupy the same space

Looks great on a Mexican bandit, but it's a no-no in real life, doesn't stop people draping the stuff all over themselves, whenever they get the chance though, usually around camp/bivouac when 'bombing-up'!

I think these are relatively current Chinese production rather than the Turkish Pilsen (who did pirate some of those later sets - thanks for reminding me Chris Smith), and their quality is too poor for the neighbouring Greece's Solpa, so China looks likely, but I stand to be corrected.

The swansong of Briatins Deetail was really more of a tragic tailing-off, as an attempt to stave-off the advance upon the play-rooms' of the world by ravening hordes of 4, 5 and 6" action figures was met with a stab at popularising 2" action figures, a situation not helped by Britains choosing to anchor their feet and paint them as if they were attending 'Military-Man Monday Mayhem' at the Blue Oyster Club! Indeed, I think the grenade thrower is already halfway through the YMCA dance!

1975; [WWII] U.S. Paratroopers, 51464 / 51464-8 / 51564-7 / 951564 - 1:32 Scale (54mm)

One of the late sets which received all the poses of the smaller 1:76th scale or 'HO/OO' set, a set which - itself - had a high number of poses, also a set which quite quickly appeared in a second colour, and it seems to be also that like the HO/OO set, the first; Airfix 'neutral' light grey, is more common than the second; Airfix 'army' green colour, suggesting that a top-up (or end-of-run?) of both scales was produced in the green, to use up some green or because the Ghurkhas or someone else green were also going through the production plant?

Much looked-forwards to when I was a kid, it was strangely disappointing when it finally arrived, having far too many figures doing nothing, standing around doing nothing or prone doing not much. But that was an illusion caused by the number of poses and in fact six of them are fighting/firing, which is more than some of the seven-pose sets.

The bottom right-hand trio are Hong Kong copies we will return to down the page.

29 figures in total, all pretty clearly numbered, in a mint set a drum-like ‘sprulette’ should be present on the following prone/lying figures.

·         9 – on the heel of the right foot

·         10 – on the heel of the right foot

·         11 – on right foot

·         12 – on right foot

The set was pirated at least thrice, with interim second-generation copies also resulting, the near same-size copies were issued with a HONG KONG mark on the base undersides, these were further copied, smaller, and issued as generics.

In the UK the larger figures were carried by Henbrandt of North London/East Anglia, and while the card is similar to the generic there are enough differences, not lest that these are passed-off as Germans on a little label-box!

The generic version were probably earlier (but probably only by a few months or a year at the most) due to the fuller/co-ordinated artwork and at least the nationality matches the uniforms this time! Other than the artwork differences, however, these are the same figures as carried by Henbrandt.

Meanwhile, around 1986 (a bit later than the above sets?) the Artform Industrial Co., of the New Territories, also pirated them (probably separately to the other source) with heavier but neater bases and of a smaller size, matching one of my other copy-samples; which is probably a sub-piracy of the Artform set.

Here's a close-up of the three types with those probable Artform sub-piracies in the middle, the larger generic/Henbrandt to the left and Artform's on the right.

Fourteen poses would have allowed the duplicates to be blanked-off the tool when Airfix switched to the 14-figure boxes, ensuring that each box got all the poses.

The 1985 catalogue carried part of the artwork from the rear of the 29-figure boxes, showing a painting of one of the figure poses from both sides and some like-wise rendered militaria.

♪♫♪♪♫ Let's dance . . . pick up your best grenade and dance the blues

Let's dance; to the song they're playin' on the Werffer of Nebels
Let's sway, while color lights up the foxhole
Let's sway, sway through the line to a safe-throwing space!♪♫♫♫♪h

Further digging (in 2020) revealed Hing Fat to be the producer of another set of Airfix copies, almost certainly issued by several other brand-marks and/or as generics - both bags above are anonymised and . . .

. . . here we see a set branded to Billy V, the now defunct (and short-lived in any event) import-arm of the equally defunct Imex. When I say 'import-arm', most of Imex's inventory was import or joint-venture of one sort or another, Billy V were specifically their 'Rack Toy' arm.

Other revalations in late 2019/2020 have resulted in a 4th identified variation, so just when I thought I could put it all to bed, we're still looking for one's ID! Also a new colour, associated with the un-ID'd set has been sent to the Blog!

Courtesy of Chris Smith came these sandy-coloured figures, probably issued as one of two-sides in a larger rack toy, they are similar to the Hing Fat attributed lot, but (with both these and the larger green sample) there are base differences which point to a 4th source.

Base marks as I believe them to be attributable, but nothing is set in stone with this Hong Kong stuff! The figures from '2' & '3' are almost the same but the bases are very different, and it may be that one pirate supplied duplicate tools to two different makers, one of whom was Hing Fat.

Links

http://biblicrafts.blogspot.com/2020/02/airfix-ww2-132-us-paratroopers.html
http://biblicrafts.blogspot.com/2020/03/airfix-ww2-132-us-paratroopers-part-2.html

1971; [Civil / Sportsmen] Footballers Sports Series, 1835 / 51470 / 51470-3, 1:32 (54mm)

Along with the hard polystyrene plastic 'kit' figures 'Track Officials and Spectators' meant for the slot-racing system; these were the only modern civilian set issued in 1:32 scale, equating to 54mm.

Title / Titles

Footballers Sports Series

Catalogue number/s

Cat No. 1835 - Code No. 51470-3 (Type One box)

Code No. 51470-3 (Type Two box)

Item-No. 51470-3 (French box)

One Airfix website has credited the set with the following codes - 9-51570 for 1980-84, 14 figure 'small boxes' and 51570 for the 1986 equivalent; to this author's knowledge, neither set was issued and no second referee was tooled-up, as would have been necessary.

Catalogue entries

9th Edition

10th Edition

11th Edition

12th Edition

13th Edition

14th Edition

15th Edition

Meaning it was advertised (in all versions) from between 1971 and 1978 inclusively, whatever the retail availability and/or actual issue/batch date/s. The first version box seems no rarer than the second, so when the '73 artwork boxes actually got released is another question.

They say

"This new set of model figures will enable the enthusiast to stage his own football match. There are 29 pieces in the set - 24 players, in various poses, 2 trainers, 2 linesmen and a referee. In addition there are 2 footballs. We leave the choice of team colours to you as all the figures are unpainted." 9th edition catalogue, issued autumn 1971 for 1972

Box Types/Date of issue (with notes)

1 - Type One (no date, large box-end logo, herb green graphics, equates to brown box 'round logo' era, possibly available for Christmas 1971 but probably not issued until 1972)

2 - Type Two (possibly issued in 1973, but it looks as if they weren't got to market until 1974, small box-end logo, grass green graphics, equates to target box era, new 'Letrasett' style block-font)

3 - 'Le Redoubt' (French Language, 1974 issue, box; ©1973) The French version of the type two box, carried by the mail-order company La Redoute has a translation of the information panel, but drops the World Cup 1966 winners line and adds the winners of the 1974 Munich World Cup (Germany) after the Brazil/Mexico line, creating a new paragraph and letting us know the French issue was produced after the World Cup had been held, in late 1974, despite carrying a 1973 copyright, not found on the English box.

There are other differences in layout of that box rear and while the word footballers is on the front (and the four sides - leading to changes in the positioning of the figures on the long sides), on the back panel is has been changed to Footballeurs with a 'u', also the La Redoute logotype is to be found round all four sides of the box under the 'Footballers'.

Number of figures/accessories per box

The early box describes the set as containing 29 scale pieces, there are in fact 29 figures and two ball as one additional 'spruelette' moulding for a 30 or 31-count depending on whether they are found mint or loose.

Figure poses - by identifying number/letter codes

Figures are not marked.

Other notes

*The two figures above – reaching high & reaching low – are actually the same goalkeeper pose, placed in different attitudes vis-à-vis the base, prior to the final stages of the cavity positioning/cutting/mould-making process.

One of the two balls, if anything about this set is 'rare' (and it's neither of the box types if evilbeevilBay is anything to go by!) it is the footballs, which are tiny and easily lost, I've never checked but I think they may actually be under-scale?

Comparison between an Airfix figure and two of his clones; the Champions of Soccer board-game playing piece from Mike Orchard Enterprises, published in 1984 and a Hong Kong marked rack toy/cake decoration.

Vis-à-vis the HK one; the same source seems to have been responsible for the copies of the Airfix 1:32nd scale Napoleonic Infantry, being issued in the same colours and wearing the same, quite neat, base-mark.

Another of the Mike Orchard figures, it's easy to mistake the six Champions of Soccer players for Airfix if found in this colour, but he is both slightly smaller and a paler, wishy-washy creamy-white, rather than the full 'double-cream' of the Airfix originals.

The above are just four scans from the earlier box. There are more comparisons to come, more of the HK figures and better images of the 2nd version box - if I didn't sell them all in 2011, time will tell?

Update on the Hong Kong copies with four different poses. They have lost a bit on [probable] pantographing, but these were quite late as far as copies from the colony went, and compared to some of those third or umteysomethingth-generation copies of earlier figures (8th Army or Germans for instance) these have been done well and kept most detail to almost the same level as the originals. It may help that there's been no attempt to give them different or wacky 'landscaped' bases?