L is for Lone Star - Harvey Series 54mm Paratroopers (Berets)

These going to be a mini- or semi-season of Khaki Infantry 'box-tickers' over the next few days, we've seen them all before, and I don't think my samples have grown since we did, but I shoved them all into a couple of posts last time, this time we'll look at them one by one. I got them out to have a 'session' with the new camera as some of the menu-items are a bit different and I wanted to familiarise myself with the new 'machine'.

Title says it all; Lone Star, 54mm, paratroopers, they fit in with the helmeted para's quite well having been sculpted by the same chap in a similar uniform although without the long jackets of the helmeted ones, and sans the full-pack 'movement-order' webbing, indeed the flamethrower is almost no more than a head-swap!

Looking at them I can see that several of them DO belong on the Khaki Infantry page, even though I chose to keep them off; as the set (as a whole) is not pirated from either the Timpo or Britains sets which that page is based on, but equally the kneeling firing and officer are highly derivative while the advancing is 'after' and the waving pose owes a bit to Britains casualty? So I might have a 'similarities section, before or after the HK/Unknown sections down the bottom of the page?

Plastic colours; The early ones tend to shades of camel-dung or true khaki (elephant dung, where do you think 'kak' comes from!) or a dark olive-drab, while later ones also come in the fetching herb-green of the left-hand shooter. Note also that both the shooters have that offset, double base you sometimes see with the medieval knights.

Painted as paratroopers or Royal Marines/Royal Marine Commandos, most of mine (which came from a single source) are either  unpainted ones (Woolworth's) or had the paint stripped from them for some reason? The beret is the floppy WWII one (despite the anachronistic EM2 - dealt with in posts passim) which seems to be part Tam o'Shanter and part individual shelter (!), as a result the headgear could be painted khaki as regular infantry, or other corps.

Base marking can include a numeral - same for each figure - which may be cavity marks or figure/pose numbers but certainly do for the latter anyway; versions also exist with no number and the odd blank one turns-up.

Send three-and-four'pence; we're going to a dance! A rather simple heat-conversion on the unpainted officer's elbow has produced a nice, effective variation which I intend to paint-up one day.