This month, we have the first of several figures from Armoury's International solder collection that I hope to showcase this year. This fellow represents a Federal German mountain soldier (gebirgsjäger) and has been released from the box he's been trapped in since the early 2000s. While I'll conduct a brief review in a moment, first a rant.
Considering the popularity of WW2 era German subjects in the 1/6 scale action figure hobby, the lack of post-War German soldiers is rather shocking. In fact, there have basically been NO German soldiers of either east or west from the Cold War era and only a small handful of post-reunification troops. Most of those figures have represented the para-military GSG-9 and KSK. As far as regular grunt Bundeswehr troops go, this guy and a similar Fallshirmjäger (paratrooper), along with some carded desert uniform and equipment sets, all from Armoury, seem to be it. I'm not forgetting the more recent carded uniform from Soldier Story, the two Magic Cube KSK guys or the Soldier Story KSK operator.
IIIIIIII'm the man in the box!
Lots 'o pics. I was experimenting with different camera settings but I'm not really sure I'm happy with the result. I've given him the uncreative name "Hans" because, well, I ain't feeling creative!
The usual 4-view shots that you always see here. For some reason, I couldn't really get him to hold his rifle closer to his body. Over all, I like the detailing on this guy although some of old school materials like the extensive use of elastic straps shows its age. I ended up leaving some things out like his radio and pistol because I lacked good research information. I took a wild guess on the bayonet because I couldn't see it in any photos I had.
Close up shot of his face. Again, not what collectors would accept today but I like him as he is.
The Heckler and Koch G36 rifle. Like most weapons, some troops love it and some hate it. If I were starting my own army though, it would definitely be a contender.
A final shot of Hans that I posted on Instagram. I wouldn't mind having a few more sets of this basic uniform. I've had this idea of doing figures from a semi-fictional "Euro-Force" or possibly a German supplied fictional country but both this Flecktarn and the similar Japanese Jeitai camo have been a bit hard to find lately. Even though this guy is a mountain soldier, it would be fun to have a few like him paired with a 1/6 scale Leopard 1A5 and/or Marder 1A3 as an older generation Panzer Grenadier squad. That isn't going to happen but it would be cool.
See 'ya next time!
