H is for How They Come In - Chris - Combat Troops

We've seen the paratrooper parachutists in the first post, but this is the rest of combat types, which is World War One to the present day, and we're starting with a bit of heavy metal; "Generals gather in their mass'ehhhhs . . . just like witches at black mah'has'ehhs!" Probably one of the worst lyrics ever, it's the sort of song lyric 14-year old Rock-dreamers write on the back of their geography text books! It's the same word Ozzy, you can't have masses twice, it grates!

The above trio are all probably home-cast piracies, with this quick-mix, soft silicone it's very easy to make short-life moulds now, and we have two Matchbox US Infantry clones and an older Lone Star who seems to have been painted as a German Fallschirmjäger?

But, below, are far more interesting, as they are a further example of the ones I got from Italy, as a follow-up to the plastic ones Chris sent in a previous donation? Royal Fail managed to break one, but they are die-cast, so a spot of superglue and the activator pen should sort that problem in an instant!

 

And all comments in the previous post about Peltro apply here too. There is some more to come on these at some point, but it'll have to wait for a 'bitty post'! Unlike the Germans, where each got a separate title, these are all dubbed simply 'US MARINE'.

A right old mix here, have we had the top left one before? I'm pretty sure Chris or Peter E have sent us one, and I think I had one somewhere, he seems to be from some kind of wire-slide thing, or possibly a helicopter rescue/extraction set, but could be a parachute toy? Odd anyway!

Another large scale tank commander (sand yellow), I was looking at them on eBay the other day and there's a lot of these 1:24, 18, 16th or larger models out there, but the budget required for that hobby is beyond me! Another of the seated US sailor/gunner . . . someone must know what he's from, he keeps turning-up, so there must have been a shed-load of them once?

Kit legs from some poor unfortunately eviscerated soul, two types of 'Payton' (et al) seated figure - we will do all the trucks one day and colour match the crews, but I haven't made a concerted effort to find and purchase the necessary lorries yet!

A nice Timpo swoppet first type US officer clone, a Supreme Russian and a copy of the Deetail Japanese Infantry, but it's not the Kwong Wah version, which have a separate, plastic version of the later style Deetail base, with rounded ends? This one has the earlier, oblong base, integrally-moulded.

The base of the Supreme figure is marked Fuliduo Toy Factory, which may give sustenance to one of my 'eemies', but I don't think there's much to excite, the figures were wildly announced in the Toy Press as Supreme back in the day, and I suspect this is either the full name (as in address) of one of Supreme's facilities or a subcontract/contractor? And they're not a Russian firm, they just copied a lot of the Zvezda-Italeri sets!

The two red figures are probably Italian firefighters from a large beach-toy fire-engine, a stable-mate of the Politoys (et al) DUKW? Some more shades of those funny flats of the Lone Star/Britains khaki infantry - I picked up a red one at PW! The gunner from the Corgi Dingo is useful, as is the Dunkin (et al) machine-gunner.

 

The kit figures (top left), Monogram and Aurora (I think), are also nice additions as there are often many colours of these kits, each production-batch being produced in a new colour, so building sets takes forever, while to their right we have another two commanders from battery-operated/radio-controlled/push-and-go or clockwork tanks, which will all be attributed one day, and having the figures is better on 'room used' than having all the tanks!

All good stuff and many thanks to Chris Smith for them!