1973 [WWII] British Infantry (2nd Version), 01703-5 / 9 01703 - HO/OO

So these were the new version, much anticipated, they were a bit of a disappointment when they finally arrived, and most of the criticism of the set found elsewhere over the years is well founded. But - there's always a 'but' - it doesn't add up to much really, as the set still delivers a decent bunch of figures, well sculpted and ten times better than the Combat Group set they replace while paying homage - through a stretcher team!

It's about how much the problems bug you, or how much you are willing to let the problems bug you! They are thinnish, they are under-equipped, and too 'clean', their uniforms are too tight...but...they paint-up OK, sculpting detail is fine and they are a vast improvement on the Britains-clone blobs.

A nice painting guide from the 1980 catalogue, the image taken from the back of the long boxes of that era. In point of fact the battle-dress was a tad darker.

The slightly larger ammunition box illustrated is an accurate representation of the ammo-box for the Bren gun, but its carrying handle was actually on one end, so it would hang with the long dimension in the vertical. An academic point as the actual figure sculpt clearly carries the thinner box configured for the belted ammunition of the Vickers MG! The figure from the older set of Combat Group however, could very well be carrying a Bren gun ammo-box!

Atlantic's figures, I think the Airfix set pre-dates them by a year or two, but they were close, however while some of the Atlantic poses are quite nice, the set as a whole owes more to the dancing loons of Cherilea and its UN troops then to any others! They were also a deal taller, but a lot of that was down to the deep, heavy bases. I had more to say about this set on the main blog a while ago.

The 1975 Airfix catalogue (image provided by Kostas again!) was a cross-over catalogue, with the older 'blue box' imagery in the main (Ancient, Medieval, Waterloo, Wild West, WWI etc...Civilians!), but with the WWII sets illustrated as joint-set photographs in the new 'white-box' or 'corner-graphics' artwork.

The OBE's in this sample are not much it has to be said, but I had a major paint-stripping session a year or two before I'd even heard of blogging, or handled a computer for that matter, so these are what's been painted in what's come-in in mixed-lots since about 2004/5?

I can never imagine what makes someone start painting their figures all-over jade green or gloss balck, but then I remember I had some silver Marines when I was a kid, which I must have painted myself in a mad moment, so it was clearly just part of being a kid...thinking about it as I was writing that (I'll get rid of the resultant typos before you see them), it struck me that actually it probably goes something like this...

You think - on the spur of the moment - "I'm grown-up enough to paint these (at age 6-8 or so) without supervision...and no-one is watching"...you get the paint out, you find a flat-ended craft brush in your school pencil-case (or the jam jar on the window-sill by the kitchen-sink), you open the thinners, then you dip the brush in the paint...it comes out dripping! You panic, realise you haven't the faintest idea how to paint a floor or a barn door, let alone 20mm figures...You stab a clumsey hand at the bayonet you intended the silver for or the boot that the gloss black was destined to coat, a large quatity of paint then uses the laws of water tention to flow down the rifle, slide effortlessly over, under and around your fingers and on down the figure...Your limited life experiance then kicks in, instantly you realise 4 things: 1) you have not got a painting cloth; 2) that blob of paint is going to drip off the figure (onto your trousers or the carpet) if you don't do something; 3) the rest of the paint on the brush is now flowing down the handle toward the other hand and 4) you need to do something about 1-3, now! So...you spread the rest of the paint on the first figure; it's still pooling....you do a few more and hey...it'll help your story that 'that's what you wanted to do', you run to the loo and grab some loo paper, you clean the brush and the fingers (at this point some story's will get worse with incompatible thinners or the introduction of water or washing-up liquid...nightmare), you put the figures somewhere to dry - hoping they won't be found before you can hide them...upturned box at the back of a drawer near a radiator was a good one...and ergo...oddly-painted figures in you nascent collection!

The experience only encourages you to try the matt green with a proper brush a few weeks later or the next time you're alone in the house!

These are in the bag marked: 'broken, converted and painted', and I didn't really know what to do with them - I'm wont to throw anything away - when it struck me the one at the back would look good crawling out of the water... a river, the sea or a flooded shell-hole. He's lost his feet as the knife de-basing him has turned-out as it cuts through the plastic, a problem cutting thicker sections of polyethylene.

There's never been the colour variation with this set you find with some of the others, partly due to it's late arrival in the list, partly down to luck. there is a darker run (slightly washed-out by the flash in this shot) and in certain lights you can find a 'greener' issue (more yellow in the mix?).

Complete set ready to roll, the poses are for the most part OK, but like their twin replacement-set; the German Infantry, they suffer from a couple of dumb poses (middle left) and I always found the officer to be a bit weak.

Basically you get more than enough for all the men in a late-war Infantry platoon, with or without a dedicated MG section, but without a mortar team. The two signallers can be a signaller and runner, or signaller and attached FOO, air liaison or similar, or you can leave one in the box!

For those who prefer to work from a one of each line-up. You can see all the criticisms clearly here...parade or range webbing, tall, thin and gangly with tight clothing, a couple of silly poses, but painted and based with a few other makes they pass muster for war gaming, and the detail is lovely, however inaccurate it might be in places.

Some sets of toy soldiers have identical stretcher carriers, this has them stepping-off from opposite feet which is a nice touch and a sign of the effort that went into the production of the set, even if it was ultimately a bit disappointing!

Comparison with the recent effort (type 4!) and they (the sculptors) still haven't really got it right (they will have their own page at some point), like their earlier brthren, paint will hide a lot of sins, but they can hardly serve together, one lot all lumpy, over-fed and cammed-up, the others hungry-lean, in parade-order with skin-tight tailoured uniforms!

The closest Airfix (or the owners of the 'brand') have ever got to decent WWII British Infantry was the ex-Esci/A-Toys/Italieri type 3 which had already been issued by...err...Esci, A-Toys and Italieri! The Bren guns are particularly poor in this set, but the PIAT is rather nice...if a little thin, and the comparison above suggests an easy conversion of the older prone figure to a PIAT-man?

The kneeling firer's from both sets make the same mistake as the type 1 (and the Britains Herald granddaddy of them all), in adopting a pose no man firing a rifle from the kneeling position ever adopted, ever, in the whole history of warfare, drill, and press pictures for dill manuals, indeed - I don't believe the human body can adopt that position without a hip or thigh being surgically dissociated first!...I just tried, you can; but it's bloody uncomfortable!

Marx (here Marksmen from Ri-Toys (Rado Industries) giants are not much of a threat despite being called 'HO' by the original maker, however the officer and the chap on the left of the line-up with the Tommy-gun, could be hidden in a platoon of Airfix after a matching paint job, they've both been to the same tailor as the Airfix chaps! [see the 8th army for comparisons of the rest of this Marx range, they are all wearing shorts]

How it should be done, Matchbox lead the way with a set of business-like poses and some nice AFV crew. However, the bases are a real pain with this set, small and slightly rounded they were table-top only, the carpet defeats them before the Germans have been set-up - if it's Matchbox Germans as well...it's an apocalypse! But they failed the colour rule as well...brown? For European theatre? NO!

Nitto get the colour rule, but totally muck-up the simple 'ish procedure of copying the figures with a copying machine! [pantograph] It doesn't help that they are trying to convert them to American M1-helmeted troops at the same time - the heads are so poor I think they came from Airfix 1st type Marines who (with a couple of Para's - also from Airfix sculpts) make up the rest of the group - now a Fujimi catalogue item.

Thanks to Konrad Lesiek I now know these (upper row, brown) were issued as kiosk novelties by Andrzej Kawecki, and are from Set 3 British Infantry, the only set of piracies of these figures I know of, and they're not bad, a slight loss of detail, but every pose has been reproduced, even the two different stretcher-bearers, all made - apparently - from recycled material; in this case a soft PVC vinyl rubber.

Indeed - I'd go further and say that by attaching the front feet to the bases, they have actually managed to improve the two dumbest (advancing, running) poses, and somehow they've got the captain/platoon commander to look more businesslike (or less foppish) just by copying him!

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1973 [WWII] German Infantry (2nd Version), 1705 / 01705 / 01705-1 / 9 01705 / A01705 - HO/OO

Another of the sets to get a 70's make-over. I was always rather disappointed by this set, although I liked the officer and the guy mooching about with an MG34 over his shoulder, festooned with ammunition belts, overall the set lacked something.

As with the British Infantry redesign, they were a bit clean and - like both the aforementioned set and the 2nd Type 8th Army - there were a couple of silly poses, also; like the US Marines there was an obvious visual difference between the ex-54mm figures and the wholly new sculpts. Something the Desert Rats and DAK don't suffer from.

1980 catalogue, again one of the little 'thumbnail' images from the back of the white 'corner art' boxes, carried over as artwork Long boxes. I've read endless column-inches on the web about this chap's weapon, but I believe the sculptor has admitted it was just a f**k-up. He's also owned-up to using an air-gun for the standing firing pose, which does look like our old BSA Original! Indeed the photographs were/are to be seen in the Plastic Warrior magazines coverage of the 54mm set somewhere.

1985 sees the catalogue artwork reproduced so darkly he looks like an SS-man, just off parade. Compare with the previous image and it's obviously a different print-reproduction process (the technical details of which are beyond me?), lithography versus what? And which is which! but anyway, in my opinion; this image looks like it's been cut from one of Ron Embleton's Trigan Empire stories! Especially as he's clearly been armed with a space-blaster!

Compared to the Atlantic set which clearly used the 1:32nd figures as influence, but not necessarily complete lifts. The blurb on the back of this set is not as fanciful as some of the sets Atlantic did, but it's one where you're left glad that you got the slightly odd looking figures in the box rather than the very odd ones in the line-drawings on the back of the box!

Colour variation - Eric Williamson in his seminal (and missed) website was a great one for telling you exactly when he thought a certain colour was used, by placing it next to the box art as you scrolled down the page. Sadly with this set he used the same grey/pale grey (?) one for every box type! This may mean that pale grey figures were common in the batches that went to North America, or that he was having a lazy-day when he did that page (as far as I know they were all hand-built in HTML).

I can't tell you for sure, but I know I never saw any in the late 1970's (when the Para's and Mountain Troops where being issued in both shades), nor when I picked-up collecting again after a few years in the Army, but by 1990/1 (as the grey window-boxes were being phased-out in favour of the 'new' white boxes) I did buy a set, so they are probably one of General Mills' or Heller's many abortions! Although, a pale grey is reasonable compared to some of the colours they visited on some of the sets between them, so I'm just having a dig!

It's (that first set of mine in the paler shade) also stiffer plastic than the standard Airfix, so an MPC thing looks reasonable. I have since found softer pale greys as well, so they may well have had a bash when the Fallschirmjaeger and Alpenjäger got theirs, or be from more resent years. The originals came in the 'standard' Airfix dark (mid?) grey of the earlier set of the WWI Germans, Luftwaffe etc...

A comparison with the Matchbox set, not much in it really, both too clean, it's like they've almost finished mopping-up in France, 1940, and were about to have a victory parade when someone started firing at them!

Again (like the Atlantic set) there is a clear influence from the Airfix 1:32nd scale figure-sculpts, with additional figures to make-up a typical '50-figure' box of 15-odd poses. As with most of these comparisons, it's the equivalent poses that have lined-up, so no Matchbox mortar team here, as Airfix thought their blokes didn't need any support!

Nitto...well, what can you say? Vaguely based on an old/early Tamiya 1:35 scale 'kit' figure set (or actually the Bandai 1:48th kit? I'll correct this when I've dug them out!), they are pretty awful, certainly no threat to Airfix as a source for large numbers of figures (their kits were pricey imports as well!), the set is now hidden in the Fujimi inventory, as the whole runner is included in quite a few of the AFV kits.

Fujimi's own set (of 10 figures) is in storage, but I managed to cobble this together until a better image can replace it, although as this Blog is aiming for a scrap-book effect - I'll probably just add it further down!

The standing figures are not too bad, being (like the US Infantry) taken from Airfix and the Deetail range from Britains, bit the prone figures - of which there are five, seem to have been sculpted by the same ham-fisted troll who designed for Nitto! Probably a clue to the similar artwork and eventual takeover of the one by the other, in there...

A couple of the poses were also used in the 88mm Flak kit, but the 105mm got separate sculpts.

The 'new' white 'corner artwork' box in the 1975 catalogue (image courtesy of Blog follower Kostas), where they sat alongside pages of the earlier 'blue box' artwork. As with the 2nd Type Afrika Korps: the blurb is referring back to the 1st Type, with mention of the anti-tank guns.

In the upper shot here we see the 8 poses taken from the existing 1:32nd scale range in the line above and the 7 'new' poses in the line underneath. There's not a lot in it, if you look hard you might say a few of the new poses are slighter than the originals, a tad shorter overall maybe, but really?

The kneeling guy is as tall (were he to stand up) as a lot of kneeling figures from a lot of manufacturers, the poses are generally weaker, but there's nothing here to say for definite that they weren't from the same sculptor as the others. There's nothing to say they weren't created at the same time as the chosen 8. Indeed, the fact that Airfix went with 8 poses, when most of the 54mm sets - at that time - typically had 7 might lead one to conclude that the decision-makers had a number to choose from? I'm not saying that, I don't know, but with the later poses being the weaker poses, it's a distinct possibility that the masters all date from the same time.

The lower shot is a comparison between those larger figures with their 'puddle' bases and the smaller ones with their distinctive ogee-cornered oblong bases. The only victim of major change is the No.2 on 'the gun', he loses his rifle and about four rounds of the end of the ammunition belt; I'm guessing here: due to problems with moulding what were the extremities of his sculpt?

 2018's catalogue - one of six, all WWII, all common, very sad state to see the old brand-mark get into.

 Boys Own Invading Poland Annual 1939?

Compared with Lone Star's oldies; they are fine size-wise, and would probably work best as last-ditch home defence (Volkssturm) from 1944/45, or a bunch of cooks and bottle-washers grabbed by a passing unit of Feldjägerkorps to help hold a crossroads - "You don't need helmets where you're going, to the last man; for the fatherland!"

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1960; [WWII] German Infantry (1st Type), S5 / 01705 - HO/OO

Some people hate this set with a vengeance, I actually quite like it. Yes, like the Combat Group they are little nondescript blobs, with dodgy weapons, but...once you'd got your second type, or a few Esci or Revell - or any of the dozens of sets released in the last 12/15 years (how many German sets?), with their good detail and manly 23mm HO-going-on-1:72 sizing, these make fantastic Hitler Youth!

Lots of Panzerfaust, Panzerschrecht and the little AT rifle thing (28mm AT gun Model 41, s.PzB 41) are all lovely for a last stand at the cross-roads. And yes - I know there are Hitler Youth now in one or two of those 20 or more recent issues, but have you seen them? Horrible little dwarven lumps sculpted like metal war-games figures from the '70's.

"Ah!" I hear you say, aren't these the same?...Well, not really, these are steeped in nostalgia for one, and for another they are - if anything - sculpted for/like composition production, not lumpy metal, the masters being sculpted in wax from the look of them?

Aren't they lovely? OK, they're little blobs, but they're rather nice little blobs if you are a child of the late 1960's-early 1970's! The AT rifle was very useful for conversions, particularly for half-tracks. Favourite poses (way back when) were the officer with his riding breeches, his No. 2 (with the binoculars) and - for the pre-pubescent giggle factor - the wounded guy holding his nut-sack like a squirrel!

Favourite poses now include the kneeling ready with SMG, don't know what SMG, but he gives me a nostalgia hit as does the grenade thrower, and I still like the little gun with its wooden crew!

Little bags like these could be either Christmas Cracker gifts or 'novelties' or cake decorators supplies, but were easily as likely to be found included in 'Lucky-bags'. I know we got these jade-green coloured figures in Lucky-bags around the mid/late-1970's, but  don't remember the 'planes or ships at the time, so I suspect Christmas Crackers for these combination bags.

The aircraft are MPC 'Minis' copies and were issued with all sorts of Hong Kong rack-toys, gum-balls and the like, the boats too have been seen with other HK sets.

Comparison between Matchbox's set and the old and tired (retired by the time they came out) Airfix boys. Although the Airfix set had been withdrawn, it continued to be issued in 'fort' play sets for some time after the Matchbox figures were issued (1976). There is no comparison, although we hated the bases when these first came out, and they are a bit 'flat' due to the limits of the moulding technology at Matchbox, the detail is fine, the animation is much better and they had a mortar and proper MG's!

Fujimi comparison shot, not the best sample of the Fujimi, but I may have a better sample made-up in storage so we can re-do this at some point, they were a mix of the then 1:32 scale Airfix (officer) and Britains Deetail poses, along with several prone figure-poses apparently lovingly hand-sculpted from a pile of cow-muck with the blunt-end of a broken shovel!

This set (like most of the sets with figures) continued to clear the 'old type' long after the 2nd version had been released, and it was late issues of this play-set that contained the Japanese contaminant. I'm not sure why I haven't included a photo here yet as I have a couple around somewhere, but he may be in the Japanese bag....although I've done those pictures too, so he may be in storage with the Miscellaneous Airfix box? I'll add them below when it happens as they need to go on the Jap page and the WW1 German page as well.

Aurora copied the set for their Anzio Beach play-set/kit. My mate David Anderson had the set when we were kids, and although he left it at home, he brought to school and gave to me one each of the pile of tentage/tarps, stack of boxes and an oil drum to prove it existed and I still have them, much treasured possessions - despite having a mint set and several part sets now.

Hong Kong copied these prolifically before better figures (to copy) came along, with different companies (the loosest use of the word 'company'!) apparently copying a different 'menu' of poses, although there more than in this shot, which is what has come-in in the last few years, again storage holds the master-collection of these and larger samples will give-up the fuller picture in the future.

Airfix originals are the bottom rank, and sometimes these come with a mix of Airfix 8th Army copies and a falling casualty, who could be from the Combat Group, but is probably taken from the Britains Lilliput set. The blue row are from the same source as the jade ones in the little bags further up the post, and each row is from a different source. We will return to them below when I get the images sorted out and look at the various sets.

Montaplex-Hobbyplast used the figures in various sets and here we see them in the German Combat Group and El Alamein envelopes, equipped with a [captured!] Radar Jeep in the former and a couple of sub-scale trucks (radio-shack and runway control - I think!) in the latter, which also has a runner of 8th Army knock-offs.

Straight comparison, Montaplex really pushed the boat out with this particular act of piracy, copying no less than fourteen of the original poses with no duplicates. Figures are a bit smaller and slighter and suffer from the usual loss of finer detail.

Another set, another colour and a Japanese-looking bomber! France prepares to fold as the Prussians roll across their green, leafy. rural idyll for the third time in 70 years! Will they ever learn?

Nitto's set is the only one capable of claiming to be superior to it's then rival Fujimi (now stable-mates), based - I think - on Tamiya (or Bandai?) 1:35th scale kit figures and with separate weapons, they are still poor sculpts, just not as poor as the Fujimi set!

Sorting sets back in 2007/'08, the reason for laying them out is that it becomes easy to spot damaged, miss-moulded or converted figures by running you eye along the row, also any paint remnants stand-out like a sore thumb - see the brownish prone figure in the top right of the bottom left image.

You can see four sets already sorted on the other box top, and by counting the streatchers (top left) you know you're looking for another six sets, although out of shot were more bags of bits to be added as those seen are picked...I tended to do a light grey set then a dark grey set, fill the gaps and go again, the fifth set would be a more specific colour (there are some blueish-grey sets).

You keep going until you're down to the last few which you do as mixed (colour/shade) bags to knock-out ofr  a couple of quid at a show, the bargains causing customers to stop at your table, hopefully spotting something else while they wait for their change!

The late WWII sets from Atlantic were much bigger (here showing their homage to the Airfix 1:32/late set), and you can see what I mean about the old Airfix set as making good Hitler Youth!

Atlantic 'Hitler and the Brown Shirts', from the earlier sets however, is a much better match, and while the figure stands higher, that is down to the depth of the base. Careful use of a variable-speed belt-sander, held upside-down in a vice can solve that problem for ever!

Eidai-Grip-Arii also copied the 1st version Airfix Germans, three of them, along with the crew of the risible Sd.Kfz.234 Armoured Car from the same company. The whole set was also included in the big German Secret Strong Point play set, issued again by Arii in recent times and not very 'secret' as it's garrisoned by everything in the range!

I've miss-matched the kneeling figure but no matter, you get the idea! As with the HK and Spanish copies, these lose size and detail (but not as much of the latter) through the poor use of a pantograph, to copy from the original figures. The other two figures are - of course - from the Airfix Sd.Kfz.234 eight-wheeled armoured-car model kit, with the idiot mudguards.

First version 'cartoon artwork' boxes are my favourite, although they pretty-much pre-date me as a toy soldier fan, there were still a few on the revolving wire-rack dispensing 'trees', or at the back of the shelf in Webb's newsagents as I grew into Airfix in the late 1960's.

Comparison with the contemporary Lone Star offering, and LS wins hands-down, the detail on their figures wouldn't be seen on Airfix for some time still, and while probably equally invented, the flame-thrower works better with it's loop of hose and the kneeling firer knows how to fire, while kneeling!