Verlinden
Productions
2190
This
is a very versatile set and though the Verlinden 2005 catalogue
shows them serving an M7 Priest, you can easily use these figures
with Italeri's 105mm or 155mm howitzers, or assisting with the big
M59 "Long Tom" or M115 8" guns from AFV Club.
All
four figures wear the canvas leggings over their combat boots, so
you can place these figures in any theater of operations at any
time during the war. Three of them wear the M1941 field jacket,
which can be backdated to the M1940 "Parson's jacket",
which would be more commonly seen in Tunisia in 1942, by adding
slash pocket flaps and carving off the shoulder loops. Be careful
when attaching these particular torsos to their lower leg parts;
they look very similar and you don't want to mix them up or you
might have problems positioning the arms.
The
box art errs in painting two of the three M1941 jackets in olive
drab (the figures with the handie-talkie and the 105mm ammo round).
If you want jackets that look like they were newly issued, you could
go with a greenish khaki, like Tamiya's #XF49. Otherwise, go with
a khaki tan or mustard color to show jackets that have been well
worn and faded. The same would apply to the winter combat jacket
worn by the figure plugging his ears.
Appropriately,
there is little gear attached to these soldiers. There are a couple
canteens and fighting knives, a binoculars case, and the handie-talkie
molded to the officer's hand. You'll need to provide the lanyard
being pulled by the upper left figure on the box.
The
poses are realistic, and the sculpting is typical Verlinden: softer
and not as well defined as Hobby Fan or Warriors, but quite acceptable,
and the faces are expressive. There is the usual amount of clean
up. On the upper torso pieces, the sculptor has attempted to get
a bit of overhang on the belt buckles that should ride over the
trousers on the lower leg pieces. Make sure you don't carve that
off when you remove the casting plug.
This
set can be augmented by VP's "U.S. Ammo
Handlers" pair. That gives you six figures, still one short
for a full crew for the Priest. A good addition would be another
figure delivering a round to the vehicle, which you could find from
Verlinden or other manufacturers. It would common, however, for
crews to be short a man or two, particularly as the war progressed
in late 1944 and 1945.
Pure
field artillery figures have been on my want list for a long time.
Good work Verlinden.
-tss-
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