1971 [AWI] Washington's Army, S39 / 01739-4 / 01739 - HO/OO

1971 [AWI] British Grenadiers, S40 / 01740-4 / 01740 - HO/OO

1962; American Civil War Union Infantry, S12 / 01712 / 01712-9 - HO/OO

Like the preceding 'S10' (Foreign Legion), this was a great favourite when we were kids, and with most of the poses based-on (or giving rise to?) the FFL poses, pretty interchangeable. Also like the Legion's link with Beau Geste, this set came amidst such films as The Raid, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, The Red Badge of Courage, Gone with the Wind, the one with the train...loads of them!

So with our heads full of the blue and the grey, we would have hours of fun with these. At school we would pool our resources and have one colour storm the trenches of the other colour under the rhododendrons by the swimming pool (outdoor, unheated, this was the early 70's mind!), parrot-guns with the defenders, the uphill assaults usually descended into a chaos of flung gravel, clouds of dust and arguments about who's figures were who's as the end-of break bell went. Casualties were decided by marble, which favoured the entrenched side.

A full set, the real disappointment with this set was the 10 (a quarter of the contents - near as dammit) figures on their belly! A realistic set of WWII or modern troops should really include all prone, kneeling, squatting or other ground-hugging poses, but rarely does 9and wouldn't have as much play value if it did!), but ACW? We'd seen the telly...we knew it was long lines of brave Oakies, Yankees and Johnny Reb's walking toward each-other's murderous fire...not lying in the dirt!

Colour variation, not as marked as the Legion (see above), but this may be because I haven't found a really bright or pale set yet, however with the numbers I've handled over the years I think they missed the batch of plastic that produced the brightest blue of the FFL. Likewise they seem to have avoided the very dark batch which both the US Cavalry and the Foreign Legion got.

These early sets by Nibblet were reused as much as possible, and in these comparisons we can see the similarities between the Union Infantry and the Confederates, the Foreign Legion and the crawling cowboy. The real reason why the large number of prone poses was such a pain is also revealed, the 'Rebs' get a second officer, lots of extra standing, advancing and trench-fighting poses AND a whole new pose, gutting if your Gran, gave him the Confederates and you the Union!

Montaplex issued several ACW sets, and the two above both have copies of the Union Infantry in them, not sure what they would have made of a Willys Jeep though, especially one with a radar dish! The Gettysburg (Gettisburg!) set seems to reverse the order of the day, with Union attacking and rebels defending.

Other Bugger's Efforts, if you are of a curtain age these should bring back a few memories (and if you recognise your work - let me know for a full tribute), if you're a youngster you brain's probably forming an unspoken WTF!

Here's the deal for you youngsters...we were given a pack of soldiers by some well meaning relative, sometimes they would give us two or three paints (whatever the storekeeper was keen to offload) as well, along with a dodgy 'craft' brush and a tube of UHU.

If no paint, Mum or Dad would see what was in the garage or could be found under the sink and you MADE DO! There was no 30 shades of Vallejo flesh, there were no Army Painter dips, even the Humbrol Authentic Colour range didn't strike until the 70's and was outside the purchasing-power of most kids and a lot of their parents.

And - believe me - the above are not the worst...a lot of us, looking at the paint selection before us, would simply decide to use them for a James Bond 'baddie' army, and proceed to paint Paratroops, WWI Germans and ACW in the same apple-green and yellow uniform with black hats!

A few conversions - dismounted Cavalry with shortened muskets for carbines at the top, some French Napoleonic guards below them. The bottom row are a right mix, with a kneeling WWI Allied conversion who's lost his head, so we can only guess which unit/army he joined? the dismounted dragoon/cuirassier type deserves to be finished and one day I'll have a go, despite someone else starting him off. Finally; in disgust at their number building in the tin, I threw-out my burgeoning collection of prone figures, but cut the weapons off to make stacks of muskets for camps.

Scanned from old photographs, so low-definition, this is my old 'standard' Union uniform, I used to use Rotring mapping pens to do the overlaps on the belts and the 'U.S.' on the water-bottles and bread-bags.

One of my specific regiments, this almost certainly came from the Blandford uniforms series American Civil War edition, as it was in the local library when it wasn't on semi-permanent loan to me!

Quick reference shot/guide for a full set.

Thanks to Kostas from Greece, we have the 1975 catalogue to plunder for box-art and blurb, this was a particularly well though-out 'pair' as the confederate box (see 'older post' below once I've uploaded it!) has them on the other side of the creek!

Matchbox/Airfix comparison

Links

PSR Union Infantry Page
My Old 'war games' Army

1965; [Wild West] U.S. Cavalry, S22 / 01722 / 01722-6 - HO/OO

I had a love-hate relationship with this set as a kid, 12 poses was good, and the dead horse, rearing horse and charging horse were all fine but the six trotting poses (shared with the Arabs and Sheriff of Nottingham sets) would NOT stay standing-up! awful bloody creature, awful I say!

Thanks due to Kostas, a follower from Greece for this catalogue scan; the 'blue-box' artwork in the 1975 catalogue, this does the contents justice in the Cavalry department, but leads one to expect a lot more of the Indian set than you actually get!

The horses I did get on with! The dead horse was quite unique at the time, I think Marx had done one in large scale, but this - while a bit grim in subject matter - gave a whole other dimension to a set of toy soldiers. The Officer's rearing mount with the clever use of tricycle mounting pins - by hiding one at the end of the tail - was inspired, possibly the best horse Airfix ever did in small scale?

The last shot is the guidon-bearer (another favourite, despite the rather heavy lance and flag) on the charging/running horse, which usually worked OK.

Colour variations, they don't seem to have had a very dark ink-blue issue, but they were common with the early FFL sets and this was a later issue. However they do have brighter versions which are a latter issue, click on the image to see the mould-damage on the saddle of that late (right-hand) example.

The lower shot shows the re-issue from the 1990-2000's, a rather insipid sky-blue, which I guess is the trouser base-colour, as opposed to the jacket/hat base-colour of the older issues. I don't know if Humbrol/Heller didn't get the colour thing, or where trying too hard to follow Esci and Atlantic? As Airfix used to lead the field, it would rather sum-up those years!

OBE's including the guidon bearers for an entire war-games army that came my way! I can never get enough of these - as I'm sure you've gathered if you're scrolling through from the beginning of the blog! - even though they are all earmarked for cleaning and/or repainting one day. This is how we did stuff in the early days.

Note how the bottom row are all serving with the Confederacy...dirty Rebs! Strictly these are post-Civil War 'US Army' cavalry from the Indian Wars (slaughters), but we used them for ACW all the time, there was nothing else!

My Egyptian cavalry; removal of feather's and a set of US Army mounts left them a formidable opponent for my Greeco-Roman army of several centuries later! They were based round a core of the first Atlantic figures to hit these shores in the late 70's. Inset are a couple of English Civil War conversions missing the heads they had stolen from Nottingham's men.

Bagged-set as issued in the fort play-sets...I hadn't planned on doing the ready-made forts here, but will make room for them one day. [now done - see image below]

A quick-guide to the contents of a complete set, it's not really needed with this set, one-each of the figures, one each of the two best horses, four of the useful horse pose and SIX (really?) of the stupid one - with bases to match.

More OBE's, this time the horseflesh; Painting horses is an art, even painting them OK-looking is a tad beyond the capacities of your average 1960/70's schoolboy, but some good efforts were made, sadly there aren't really any in the above shot! Although the attempt at a grey (rearing, bottom-left) is worthy and the dead piebald is a nice effort.

The Marx US 7th Cavalry, these actually from Marksmen via Rado Industries (Ri-Toys), although technically a larger scale (probably aiming for the US 'HO' of 1:64th scale), once painted they would blend-in quite well, especially if a few horse-swaps were indulged in!

The only Wild West accessory was this timber 'frontier' type Fort Apache, sold like this as a 'fort' and as a play-set with figures, it makes a nice trading outpost / winter quarter, although it's a bit Spartan in the facilities department, but it was first and foremost a toy!

The artwork has been reversed at the printers, clearly someone who didn't collect Airfix, he/she got the colour transparency the wrong way round at a point of no return in the printing process...Doh!

Variations of the first version 'cartoon artwork' box type. The oldest is at the bottom without the US price signature, which is present on the middle example, at the top is a second (or 'later' anyway) print run/box batch in a paler colour of blue, which has bled into the yellow giving it a greenish halo.

Imex mounted Union with the Airfix for comparison, not much in it, they look a little more ACW than US Cavalry, but size-wise the match is fair and painting will hide any horrors...on campaign the Cavalry of the Indian Wars would be as scruffy and un-Hollywood as any war-weary ACW unit anyway. The Imex blue photographs very badly!

The confederates, the legacy of Airfix in all these late 1980's (Revell) and 1990's (Accurate, ACTA, Imex) manufacturers is often clear to see and here it's with the guidon bearer who doesn't even try to carry a different shaped flag! Both sets also included a few Infantry figures (not illustrated here) taken from the Infantry set's mould cavities, and a few dismounted cavalry types, both fighting and stabling/billeting.

Imex produced a large boxed set of Custer's last stand, for which they removed one of the figures from the union cavalry set and included a 'limited edition' Custer figure on one of the several frame/runners included in the set. Subsequently he appeared in standard boxes, but others still contained the NCO halting a patrol. Whether this was a permanent change or a cavity swap will only become clear if the set remains in production with the odd re-release over a good few more years? They [Imex] could have large stocks of both frame-types, still!

As a figure he looks like the popular image of the awful self-publicist...who was a historical character, not a creation of Hollywood (although Hollywood's definitely contributed to the post-mortem mythology!), but as he served in both the Civil War and the later Western Expansion massacres, he works for both here. Of course - ironically - the most famous massacre of the genocide; was the one involving the good ol'boy himself!

Is it fair to think the Airfix US cavalry officer actually makes a better ACW officer? I think if you cut his brim-off and flocked his hat with some black velvet fluff he'd make a good Cossack! One day I'll try it and pop the result on this post...

The contents of the larger Wild West play-set, these seem to have consistently disagreed with the catalogue images/descriptions, but were consistently the three figure sets with a fort. Even the Airfix Tribute Forum (18th Oct. 2015) are currently not listing the Cavalry (because they were never in the catalogue image?), but this is a pre-'93 reissue Fort Apache Playset boxed set, and I've seen plenty over the years, always with these contents. There is a vague possibility that early 'cartoon' artwork issues with the soft palstic fort only have the two sets (Indians and Wagon Train), but I'm pretty sure I've seen them go through auction with the three compartments; full.