Here’s a set I completed a month or two ago, the ancient Airfix “Multipose” German Infantry. They were bought for me by my wife from the Hornby Museum in Margate when we visited. They were on offer! I didn’t do them straight away, because when I looked inside the box I wasn’t impressed at first inspection. But I decided to give them a go for old times sake and they turned out OK, they looked worse than they were. They needed a fair amount of work though; lots of straps and rifle slings needed adding and the officer didn’t have the deep turnback cuffs on his jacket, so these were added from the foil off a Champagne cork. All Humbrol paints. I didn’t use many of the transfers included, as they were plain wrong. The shoulder straps were black with white piping which would be fine for SS, but no good for the “Grossdeutschland” which they are meant to represent. The instructions told you to put the cuff title on the left arm - wrong, GD wore it on the right. They were also completely confused about ranking, suggesting the officer should have Obergefreiter’s stripes! The biggest problem is that they are 1/32nd, so don’t fit with anything I have, which is why I opted for “GD” rather than SS, they are “stand alone” miniatures. I think my favourite is the officer, I quite like the pose, followed by the guy walking with his rifle tucked under his arm. I quite like the grenade thrower too. The only one I have reservations about is the guy with the Panzerfaust, his uniform is a bit early and there is something “off” about the pose.
Looking good. Odd that they opt for 1/32. on a side note, very good book to read about the GD called The Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer who was (I think from the Alsace) and concscripted into it.
Very nice job on those figures. The poses look pretty good for the old Airfix sets.
Yep, I read that as a teenager, still got it somewhere. It’s an odd read in some ways, he refers to MGs as FMs (mitrailleuse - French for machine gun?) and I’m still trying to work out what a “steiner” is, obviously some kind of field car, perhaps a Kubel or a Kfz 15?
Thanks. I’m not quite sure where the “Multipose” comes in though. Having put them together it’s hard to see how you could assemble them in any other configuration, the poses are kind of fixed.
I think ‘Multipose’ might have been a way to differentiate them on the box from the single piece polythene figures they also did back in the day. Still reissue those from time to time.
As to the scale, Airfix had a small range of vehicle kits in 1/32 and quite a lot of more toy-like tanks at the same scale. It made sense to stick to that than mess around with 1/35.
You did a good job with them. I bought nearly all of the set last time they reissued them. Only one that got by me were the US Marines. Thought the Japanese set were quite nice. Really should dig them out for a fun project.
Compared to other figures of the same period, these weren’t bad, and had pretty good facial features.
You’re right. I think that was what prompted me to do them. Even more recent figures aren’t always that good facially, especially the ears for some reason!
Regarding the scale, with 1/32nd Airfix plumped for the old standard 54mm soldier scale, so that the vehicles would be compatible with other manufacturers figures. 1/35th wasn’t quite so all prevailing at that time, e.g. Monogram were all 1/32nd. Somewhere I’ve still got the old Airfix “Monty’s Humber” assembled as a teenager. The intention was to do a series of commanders vehicles, they also did Rommel’s “Greif”, but that’s as far as they got. There was also a 17Pdr Anti Tank gun kit. The polythene vehicles were to go with the polythene figures as you say. Annoyingly, they included a post-war Bedford RL three tonner, which is un-kitted to date AFAIK, except for Accurate Armour resin version.
Yes, the Humber, Crusader, Grant, 17pdr, Grief half-track and they also reboxed the old London bus in WW1 colours. Didn’t they also do a fire engine? I grabbed all of the recent reissues! They have so far never reissued the Grant. A pity they never did a Panzer III or IV to go with the North Africa theme of the others.
I have a cunning plan for the bus. A plan as cunning as a fox who has just been appointed Professor of Cunning at Oxford University. (And that’s a clue for anyone who gets that reference.)
The whole 1/35 Vs 1/32 was well before my time. It does seem that western manufacturers were pushing 1/32 and the Japanese were going 1/35. From what I’ve seen was available, the bigger range offered by Japan won the war. Although strangely they also went with 1/32 for the big scale planes.
Oh well.
1914 Dennis, new in 1964, re-popped many times since. I built it as a kid, lovely kit, body removable to show all the mechanical gubbins.
They did quite a few car kits of that era in 1:32nd too.
Cheers,
M
That’s it!
Knew I hadn’t imagined it.
I tried a couple of the cars from the 90’s reissues when I got into this game. Remember getting a couple of the E-type Jags.
One could always back date the Monogram 1/32 Panzer IV G/H/J (it has features of all three variants) to an early G or more so like old Sheperd Paine did on the Monogram Grant diorama flyer.
I always felt that the original Tamiya Panzer III was closer in scale to 1/32 than 1/35 due to the motorization size requirements…
Yes, why did they stick with 1/32nd for the planes? That does seem counter-intuitive. However some manufacturers are finally bringing out plane kits in 1/35th.
Best guess is that 1/32nd eas already an established large scale for aircraft.
If you think of some of the older Tamiya 1/32 they were producing, things like the F-14 and Phantoms, it’s not generally stuff that goes with their WW2 armour and figures. Which is what most of their 1/35 range was back in the day. I guess they just assumed people wouldn’t be mixing the 2 in dioramas and 1/32 aircraft modelers wouldn’t want to be mixing scales. Plus, 1/32 is slightly bigger, so there’s that pitch from a sales point of view.
Hasegawa were producing a lot of 1/32 WW2 fighters, but they never really delved into 1/35 armour. Similar thing with Italeri. They did 1/35 armour, but never really went into large scale aircraft until fairly recently. And again, they’re going with established 1/32. But then they went with 1/35 for their big torpedo boats! Crazy.
At least that’s my take on it.
End of the day it’s decided by the men in suits running the companies.
An absolute must-read.