U.S. Tank Commanders WWII
Modeling the U.S. Army in WWII


Verlinden Productions
1609

This is one of those maddening Verlinden products. With the growing clamor for more Allied figures, particularly GIs, it's heartening to see VP step up to the plate to meet some of this demand.

Then you open this box and wonder what kind of bonehead planned this set.

Off the bat, one's attention is drawn to the unusual appearance of these tank commanders, who are wearing web suspenders over a M1941 field jacket and the tanker windcheater respectively. Personally, I've never seen tankers wearing suspenders that could easily snag if they had to bail out quickly. A few folks on the Internet, including Ron Volstad, agreed that it was highly unusual, but not out of the question, some citing photos they'd seen of tankers in training dressed this way. It was suggested these figures might be more suitable for recon patrols in a Greyhound or M20, or replace their tank helmeted heads with some wearing steel pots and make them infantry. That's doable.

However, what really frosts me is that these figures come with identical pairs of legs. VP has deftly photographed them for the box art in a way where it's not so apparent. But these guys are twins from the waist down. So if you feel that there is some cosmic force that folds and pleats men's pants the same way, stand these two next to each other and defy people to prove it can't happen.

However, if you think there is a natural law that nothing is truly identical and everything takes its own unique shape, you're going to have to put these guys far afield from one another, or swap legs with another VP figure.

VP doesn't include the maps the figures are holding, as usual. The barrel of the M1 carbine that one tanker holds on his hip was broken, but fortunately the piece was still in the bag. Canteens, pistols, ammo pouches and binocular cases are provided for each figure.

The sculpting and casting of the figures is up to VP's general standard of excellence.

But it is lamentable how VP continues to take such obvious shortcuts like this and using the same heads for different figure sets. It certainly can't take that long to sculpt a different set of legs or heads for a pair of figures. They seem to have no problem doing it for German figures. Apparently Allied figures---or those who model them---don't command the same respect.

NOTE: A few weeks after writing this review I sat down with these figures and compared them to one in #1180 "U.S. Infantry ETO WWII" (figure on the right in box art). Not only are the legs are the same as in this set, but the torso is the same for the figure on the right in both sets. Furthermore, the torso of the figure on the left, with the binoculars, is the same as one in #1358 "U.S. Infantry Officers ETO." I've subsequently lowered my review from three stars to two.

Verlinden has been doing this for some time with U.S. figures. The soldier in #1443 "Welcome GI" has the same torso as a GI in #747 "U.S. Riflemen." Several kits share the same heads.

I'm no expert, but seems to me the investment in R&D for a figure is a lot less, and simpler, than for an AFV. I can understand why a company would want to leverage that investment over several vehicles (M8 and M20 armored cars, StuG and Panther variants, etc.). But it seems rather cheesy when we're paying full price for a "mix and match" set of figures. I've bought a number of VP Germans and have never seen evidence of this sort of cutting corners as practiced with GI figures. And though I've never seen this done by Warriors, Jaguar or other resin companies who apparently respect modelers enough to give us completely new figures all the time, this approach has been adopted recently by Custom Dioramics with a number of its American figure sets. This is rather ironic, given how VLS likes to trumpet its superiority over its former partner.

Go figure....

 

-tss-

 

Modeling the U.S. Army in WWII © 2002—2007 Timothy S. Streeter