PRB is for Plastic Rastignano Bologna

John Roquas (all images this post: courtesy of!) sent me a quick eMail the other day, with an image, asking me if I knew who had made the figures, I thought they looked familiar, but couldn't place them and being short on Internet-time that day got on with what I had to do, while the figures were at the back of my mind.

Just before I signed-off for the day I fired-off a quick reply to the effect that they might have been Cofalux; late replacements for their swivel-head 60-mil's, but that I wasn't sure and would check that night and get back to him the next day.

An Army of swivel-heads!

Well, I got home and quickly divested myself of the Cofalux 'idea', only problem was - when I tried the other obvious candidates they drew a blank as well! So I started to run through the dongles one at a time searching swivel and swoppet until on the second to last dongle I got a folder marked PRB in the results, "Ooh?" thinks I; "what's this one?" . . . Bingo! Plastic Rastignano Bologna; an importer/jobber from Italy.

13 ex-Domplastic poses

Sent off an eMail to John the next day; 'Not Cofalu; PRB, blah, blah, blah . . . ', and the next day found all these images in my inbox, so many thanks to John for helping give these a wider audience!

The figures are scaled-up copies of the smaller (54mm'ish) German Domplastic solids, which PRB imported into Italy, whether they had permission to turn them into 70mm swivel-heads or not is anyone's guess! They are generic post-war/NATO types, but PRB's addition of swivel heads allowed for WWII Germans and other types to be 'imagined' by the young owner.

There are 13 poses, one prone without a base, 12 upright on integral-bases; which are trying to be or look a bit like late-version Cherilea swoppet bases!

- Advancing with Assault Rifle, Optical-sight Fitted

- Crawling/Waving Forward Following Troops (no base)

- Firing Bazzoka

- Firing SMG

- Kneeling Firing M1 Carbine

- Kneeling Flamethrower Operator

- Kneeling Radio Operator

- Marching Infantry, Assault Rifle

- Marching Paratrooper (both chutes, assault rifle, arms resting on reserve-chute)

- Marching Paratrooper (parachute harness, unarmed, large-pack, arms swinging)

- Officer Holding Binoculars (and testing the wind with a damp finger!)

- Throwing Grenade, Holding SMG

- Waving, Holding SMG

Seven headdress types

All the headdresses are available in all the main-body colours, with the berets having additional colours allowing for (depending on where you are in the world) Armoured/Infantry (black), Marines/Paratroopers (red and green), the UN/Russian Paratroopers (sky-blue), or other Special Forces &etc.

- Beret (very floppy or broad; Italian-looking or French Resistance!)

- Cap (like Afrika Korps, Alpinejeger or UK 'Crow-cap/Crap-hat'*)

- Cap (like 1950's RCP's or REP's in Indochina or Algeria)

- German WWII Stalhelm/Fire Service Helmet

- Officer's Peaked Cap (very 'totalitarian regime' in style, not UK/US flatter shape)

- US M1 Type Helmet (good for half the world post-way!)

- UK Mk1/2 'Piss-pot/Soup-bowl' or US 'Brodie' Helmet

There may be a kepi, but I suspect it's just the way light plays on the very pale grey versions of the DAK-like cap on auction sites?

* "I'mmmmm a Jockey, I'mmmmm a Jockey!" (an in-joke for anyone who did basic training in the 1980's!)

Coats of many colours!

I told John I wouldn't collage the images he sent as they were so good, but these two are taken with and without flash and illustrate the colour differences much better if placed side-by-side.

There are both darker and paler sand's than seen here, then the mid-sand on the upper row; dark, mid, light, pale and very-pale grey - middle row; with various greens, khakis, olives and olive drabs.

That very-pale grey is verging-on and looks white, especially if used with darker colours, thus; putting a very-pale grey beret on a dark olive figure will make it look white.

Inclusive 'World' Troops

Heads also come in various colours (not knowing what John had, I told him there were 'two'), and the sample John sent back has from the right - tanned/Asian/mixed-race, Afro-Caribbean, new-born Caucasian and a 'not very well'/sick-parade colour on the far left! Although it's fair to say (from the samples I've seen, including John's) the pink 'Caucasian' seems to be numerically superior to the other ethnicities.

When I replied to John I did some back-of-a-cigarette-packet maths and going-on the 13 poses x 6 hats/helmets x 7 colours x 2 flesh-tones in my notes, and assuming headdress would match figure colour (no other beret colours taken into account), arrived at a possible 1,092 variations, if anyone with greater maths skills would like to have a go, using John's samples and including the beret colours, I'd be interested in the result, I recon it's over 4,000?

Which is an amusing exercise, but the point is, you can - with enough figures - create distinctive armies by limiting headdress-type, figure colour or even grouping poses; they're really nice figures, with tons of play-value!