GI is for General or Government - Issue or Infantryman

The American GI, turned up just in time to save us from a German breakthrough in WWI, turned-up a bit late (it has to be said, thanks Orson, no thanks Hirst) in WWII, became the villain of the piece in Vietnam for no really good reason and is now along with most of his Allies running around in the sandpits trying to get his head round whatever rules of engagement apply from whichever Blue, Red, Green, Buff or bloody Rainbow-coloured card he is supposed to be consulting on any given day prior to opening fire, so that if he has killed one of the people trying to kill him, it is at least Lawful to the folks back home with a big liberal chip on their shoulders!

I have already got 27 fast-food tubs in the large scale 'US Infantry and Marines' box, which covers all the WWII through to the 1970's figures, and while I'm going to blog some of them, an awful lot of the tubs are filled with Airfix/Marx/MPC or their many many copies, and they are a bit boring really, all green and common and stuff! So we'll be looking at the less usual ones...

When covering Americans; it's always a good idea to start with some Spanish Troops!! These are Montaplex 54mm copies of the old Reamsa figures (at least I think they are Reamsa poses!), and came in a little Sobre envelope they were fighting to get out of before they left the shop! While they are meant to represent the Spanish Army of the 1970's, they still look American enough to fit in here.

Atlantic's large scale were the same as the 1:72 (described by the maker as HO) scale figures, with various greens for the Americans, a fetching blue for when they needed to pretend to be French for a while or the 'had a run-in with a chocolate factory' set (crawling - front).

The flag-raising vignette is nice but easier to get together in the small scale, this one has a very heavy flag that kept slipping out of the men's hands before I got a decent photograph!

Modern production by BMC, these are a cut-above; very superior sculpting, casting and accuracy of detail have these up there with the best in white-metal connoisseur castings for the serious 'figure painter' types! The B.A.R. is particularly good and the animation is well done - I like these; can you tell?