1964; [Medieval] Robin Hood, S20 / 01720 / 01720-0 - HO/OO

Without a shadow of doubt - my favourite set of figures produced by Airfix, and still holding it's own against a lot of the prolific production of current toy soldier manufacturers.

I had these in an enhanced Robin Hood gang, as men-at-arms or rioting peasants in a medieval war-band, in my rather fictional Greko-Roman army (it had Etruscans and Macedonians in it!), my equally fictional 'barbarian' army and glued to my attempt at a stone-age house.

The generic clothing of loose tunics, long-stockings, hooded cloaks and belted short-sleeved tabards make them the locally-recruited yobbos of choice for any army-builder from around 800BC to 1600AD.

Copy of the 1975 catalogue image and blurb supplied by Kostas a reader/follower from Greece, showing the classic combination of 2nd Type artwork on the 'blue' box (box with blue ends for those new to the hobby), the next version would cut the bottom right-hand corner off.

Maid Marion (probably not much of a 'maid' she was shacking-up with an outlaw!), I used to think this was a commonly distorted or easily miss-moulded piece - its size giving it a propensity for shrinkage if removed too fast from the mould - but the two versions turn-up in almost equal numbers, so I think there might have been two moulds? It was a very popular set, and also came in one of the better-selling play-sets, but it's pure conjecture on my part.

Colour variations with the earlier green figures range from quite yellow-greens from the olive range, through to jadeite or emerald blue-greens, and when sorting it's worth spending the time getting them colour matched where possible.

The photograph bottom-right shows one of the commonest faults with this set, the single character figure with a small wood-choppers axe is more often than not waving a blob on a stick, but for stone-age or earlier bronze-age also-fought's he's fine as it does look like a nice stone axe-head. The same problem pesters the sword on the other lower pose.

Paint-stripping, washing and sorting, I gave a tedious blow-by-blow on the washing/stripping business the other day on the Sheriff of Nottingham update so won't repeat myself here, but note the same 'phenomena' of differing densities leading to floaters and sinkers!

The full range of variations of the greens are clear in the line-up prior to sorting. A full set is lined-up to the left as a quite to picking, and more figures (from the drying process) are waiting to be added. I start with the darker ones as they are all from the jade/emerald spectrum of blueish greens, then I do an olive/yellow green set from the paler range, once you've done that two or three times, you're left with a bit of a mix and these are made-up into mixed lose sets as eBay-fodder.

Various conversions, and the contents of the 'damaged/painted/converted' bag (bottom left); drawing-pin shields make for instant Anglo-Saxons, while damaged bowmen can often be sent strait to the front as swordsmen receiving cavalry!

The Roman soldier head-swap is typically from the Terry Wise school of army-building, while I'm afraid I removed Robin's feather to make him fit my 'Ancient Briton' force majure! Who went to all that effort cleaning the main from the horse when it would have been easier to get a Sheriff's man or Arab's horse to do the same job is not recorded, but they were more frugal times!

The remains of the recruits to my bronze-age band of ner-do-wells is top right, yes - I know - far too colourful, but I was thirteen at the time! Although, some of the work of modern thirteen-year-olds on the figure painting forums puts mine to shame, but that's progress...or practice?

 Along with colour variation in the later cream sets and a couple more views of The Maid.

A complete set in green and one of each pose (from the other side) in cream, it was not 'heavy' is poses, not because it didn't have the typical 15 of Airfix - it did - but because there were numerous duplicates of a couple of the figures to counterbalance the character figures.

From the right in  both line-ups we have Marion, Robin, Friar Tuck, and a guy with a pole arm one presumes is Little John, the other two can be seen as Much the miller's son (with a wood axe) and possibly Will Scarlet (sword)?

More conversions, these images originally appeared in Plastic Warrior's One Inch Warrior Magazine, and are scanned from old-school photographs, so aren't that high-resolution. The guy with the wooden shield is another of my childhood additions to the reaving war-band, he worked quite well with a lump of Araldite two-part epoxy holding the shield onto his arm, the same can't be said for the fat Friar, who's 28mm spear-shaft must weight in at a hundred-weight!

The sling and hedge-knife pole-armed plastic people came in with mixed lots, while the two spears between the hedge-knives in the close-ups were hammered and turned by me. You can get away with dress-makers pins for shorter javelin type missile weapons as someone has top-left to create a sort of peltast/skirmisher type.

The latest incarnation of this set, with a handy guide to the contents - an idea taken from Strelets*R and Orion/DDS (Dark Dream Studios), who introduced the habit while Airfix was going under for the umpteenth time somewhere in the 1990's...oh how the mighty had fallen!

All pieces from both sides still on the sprue. In time I will do numbered line-ups like the PSR or Eric Williamson sites as I know some people like the information in that form, and as I'm aiming at a 'Scrap-book' format, the more visual information the better.

Although the set as a whole seems to have missed being pirated, this extraordinary piece of innovation does exist. Being based on the Maid Marion figure, it is a crude re-sculpt, designed to be Queen Elizabeth II, reviewing the troops at the annual 'Trooping the Colour' pageant, which she used to do year after year. The sculptor has given Her Majesty a bearskin which looks more like a motorcycle helmet!

See the Guards Band and Guards Colour Party posts for the rest of this carded set, I will get some better images up next time I'm photographing the HK carded stuff. [25th August 2014 - done]

Close-up of the recent re-issues, they are a nice colour and with the moulds cleaned-up from the tired state they had got into; this set has a new lease of life and could run for years yet if Hornby have half a brain, and sometimes I wonder!

 

 

 

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1965; [WWII] Paratroopers (British), S23 / 1723 / 01723 / 01723-9 / 9 01723 / A01723 - HO/OO

One of the most issued and least accurate sets ever to come from the depths of the model-elves' forges in the Hadean caves of Haldane Place.

The main English language box types, vaguely in order from top left to bottom right, with the less common 1st version box.

All three versions of the early box, the 'Paratroops' box was probably first, the one above, with the 'S23' in the far corner being second and the top box the final version, the code and price (in US cents) together, being the form carried over to the 'Black-end' Blue-boxes.

Two Montaplex sets either side of an unmarked set, which clearly came from Montaplex as evidenced by the sprue layout; it was probably sold through a Hobbyplast display. Interesting that they had two different sets of Paratrooper Rip-offs...same jeep though!

The backs of the 'Sobre' envelopes with top-to-bottom equating to left-to-right in the previous shot. Close-ups of both figure types. Not only did they copy the poses, but the ridiculously high-number of men shooting their colleges! The more common sprue is of lesser quality and is lacking both the based items. The 'first' (?) sprue does provide a useful war gamming accessory in the vague approximation of a WWI Trench Mortar.

Direct size/condition comparisons between the two makes, the figures from the left-hand set in the first shot are slightly different, they were completely new copies, at least they have plugs which work, the 'jumper' from the other sets/runners are only useful as casualties!

The Polish firms of Universal (upper shot) and Globus (Global? Kracow, lower shot) both issued the same set of mouldings, one with a very crude copy of the Roco-Minitanks US M-103 Heavy Tank, the other containing some more useful copies of the Esci set; Battlefield Accessories. The figures are better than Montaplex, but not by much, the bazooka-man is inevitably miss-moulded and the mortar is a bastardized version of the common Matchbox design, and will only go together with copious quantities of super-glue and a hammer!

Meccano magazine; December 1965 - Airfix Paratroops cover for the Swedish Army!

The Lone Star figures are (despite being equally inaccurate - as British Paratroopers) the better figures and will paint-up just as nicely, not sure about the flame-thrower and that machine-gun seems to have been liberated from a French museum not yet visited by the Germans!

1967; World War One American Infantry, S29 / 1729 / 01729 - 01729-7 / A01729 / 7004 - HO/OO

One of the less common sets of Airfix by dint of their being, not that popular, not that useful and from what was - if not unpopular - a poorly supported period, historically, except in Aircraft kits where there were dozens and dozens.

HaT re-issue

German West African Regiment?

The full set.

People have a several criticisms of this set; firstly that they are wearing the wrong hat, yet they certainly still wore it out of combat, plenty of photographs of them arriving in Europe and disembarking in ‘Smoky-Bear’, Montana, ‘Boy-scout’ or ‘Jellystone’ hats, some say that they were worn in early actions and third; they were 1960’s TOYS!

The second complaint from the rivet counters is that they are wearing (with the exception of the standing firing pose) no equipment, yet by 1918 most soldiers were binning ‘Marching Order’ in favour of ‘Fighting Order’ or ‘Belt Order’ for combat, so the fact that they haven’t got large or small packs should be no hindrance to their attacking the enemy. Also; they were 1960’s TOYS!

The third complaint oft’murmured is that the ‘lend-lease’ French machine-gun is on the wrong sort of mount, well, I’ve used a very similar (but) single-pole mount with the GPMG for AA work [a ridiculous business which consists of the gunner bracing his foot against the base-plate and firmly holding the pole with his left hand (instead of the stock - as he normally would) while the number two does a little tippy-toe dance next to him (as the gunner tries to follow the aircraft around), feeding and taking the weight off (to prevent stoppages ) a 200-round belt], so my feeling is that this is probably taken from a picture, and represents the sort of expedient, field or war modification still found to this day on every battlefield. In this case being designed to bring the gun to a level where it could be operated over a trench without getting covered in mud? If not – the explanation is even simpler; they were 1960’s TOYS!

It’s one of the things I really don’t get about War-gamers, modellers and collectors (of a certain kind), the hypocrisy that allows them to field an army of immaculate Napoleonics - at Waterloo - where everybody was in damp greatcoats, seal-skins or blankets, with helmets, busbies and shakos covered and peaks removed, while muttering something about the other guy’s wagons having the wrong wheels? I’ve heard Judges at model shows marking down a WWII German camouflage, when the nature of the German system means that so long as you have a reasonably accurate base coat - anything goes.

In the days before this’ere Interwebular Wibbly Wobbly Way, one relied upon paper ephemera to research toy (that’s TOY) soldiers, and with Airfix being one of the market leaders, there is a lot of both original material and more recent works to call on, Plastic Warrior found the originals Brian Knight used to produce his box-art and you’ll have to track down issue 2 of One Inch Warrior magazine to read about it in full.

Now - of course - you can just put everything on an external hard drive and hope the sun doesn’t go too spastic at the height of its cycle and wipe everything while you’re asleep! Over time I will scan all the old paper files, catalogues and other stuff into these e-files, and get rid of the dozens of crates and boxes of ephemera lying around!

Despite the more spiteful winging of a few, these are everybody’s favourites from this set (along with the 'Danet' wiring-party in the WWI British Infantry?), the two guys leaping (a little too-gaily?) over the mud of Flanders are often miss-moulded, or - with the older figures - brittle now, however the ammunition box always survives, and can be used with the firing vignette.

This also shows the two versions of this mould, with either a thick or thin ammunition box, I’ve seen it said that the sitting figure is sat on another of these, but actually he’s on a beer or milk-crate sized box about 4 times the volume of this one, and he’s another of my favourites from this set, he looks ‘all in’

Top left; I put this on the HäT forum via imageshack some time ago with a call for help in identifying the officer copy and while there was some input, there was no useful information forthcoming, I myself thought he might be from a board game; the base was very board-gamey! Then at the Plastic Warrior show in Richmond - May last - a second turned up, clearly attached to a bubble-liquid dispenser! Any ideas on a trade mark? Anyone know if there are Bubble-bottle collectors out there? How many poses were copied?

Bottom left is a few paint-ups by persons unknown that have come in over the years, if you recognize your work let me know for a full credit, It’s fascinating to see what other people did with theirs, I particularly like the gloss-finished one at the back, he looks like a very small Dime-store figure!

Top right; some colour variations, the pale ones to the left are aged, rather than manufactured and as well as being a yellowish in daylight; are quite brittle.

The running figure is very unusual, he is basically in the RHA-ACW artillery/Cowboy or Indian brown, darkened-down with ‘Airfix’ green and with a few paler green streaks in him (enlarge the image and look at the bottom-left corner of the base, or the left shin), and seems to be a injector-head 'purge' figure, I’ve had figures with horse-hairs running through them before now (a paintbrush being used to flick dust off the mould-block drops a bristle which sticks to the mould-release agent or lubricant), but never a bi-coloured figure so I don’t know how he came to market, a Friday-afternoon job I suspect!

Bottom right shows a common figure to turn up in mixed lots of these; I found three while sorting a few sets of Americans the other night, Also it’s a common pose ‘type’ with Airfix; the WWI Brit’s and Germans got them, several of the Cameron designed sets (of which the Aussie is one) had them and the Imperial Guard had a slightly stiffer-standing one.

The US Infantry were almost certainly among the sets designed by Stadden, who produced some fine WW1 figures in metal, and again this is one of his favourite poses.

Montaplex used copies of the Americans for ‘New Zealanders’ of WWII! But not for long, they ended up using copies of the Australian infantry seen above. BüM Slot use the Aussies as well.

You either got one and a half sprues of Americans, attached to pieces of wall/rubble or the Aussies with a copy of the Dulcop take-off of the Blue Box/Ri-Toys piracy of Dinky’s Daimler armoured-car.

If you got the WWI copies, you also got three baby kangaroos (or wallabies for the sake of argument!), because as ‘eny fule no’ the Turk’s had a real problem with Kangaroos at Gallipoli! Good old Montaplex; you can’t mark them down for not trying!…note also; the MG No.2 has been turned into a based officer

I'll get a comparison shot of the Stadden Metal's up here in a day or two, and that'll be this entry done for a while - unless some more bubble-tops turn up!

A common mould shrinkage fault with later issues of this set was the base deforming as it was still too-hot when the moulding was ejected from the mould, very hot water and a cold surface like a marble cutting-board is always worth a try, but you need to hold both figures upright as you press the heated base down on the cold surface.

 Emhar/Pocketbond

 Montaplex