News, Views Etc . . . Airfixfigsblog Update

I've added a couple more comparisons to that page;

http://airfixfigs.blogspot.com/2020/02/1977-cold-war-modern-british-infantry.html

Nothing exciting, but is indicates how big the 'Super Deetail' were, even when compared with the later spinner-arm swivelidiots!

H is for Hospital - Britains Hospital

Theo van der Weerden kindly sent a scan of the1985 Britains catalogue page dealing with the Hospital by way of a follow-up to the post the other day, and it prompted me to shoot the rest of the figures while their tubs were still kicking-around.

The scan; it shows three large sets and a Helicopter Emergency Ambulance playset. The helicopter had started life as an army/air one, and would go on to be exploited as the basis for farm, police and construction (?) helicopters in various configurations, including a crop-sprayer.

The three large sets seem to have the whole range between them, but smaller boxes were available with more intimate vignettes involving one or two figures and a few accessories. Unlike the Mettoy we saw the other say, I don't have the accessories for these yet, so we're only going to look at the figures.

Medical professionals include two doctors; one male, one female, a matron or ward sister and two nurses, these are all Superdeetail over-moulds and looking at them you can see how the Para's were supposed to end-up!

They are ably supported by a medical orderly/hospital porter who has ring-hands for stretchers or trolly-beds, but who doesn't line-up quite for pushing the wheel-chair, so I may be missing a figure there?

He too is a Superdeetail figure (making a 'full set' of six), the patients and casualties being more traditional painted PVC of the plain Deetail type. We have walking wounded, prone cases and seated figures, some of which have locating-studs for fixing to the accessories.

Here we see a hot-seat change for the wheel-chair (or wheeling-chair as they were originally called!), while the woman leaning against the wall has a stud, but doesn't fit in the chair, so must normally be fixed to something in the maternity unit? From whence (the maternity unit) comes the little baby.

Nurse Rhatschett conducts exercise-hour

in Camp Adolph! "Luft, zwei, drei, vier . . .

Luft, zwei, drei, vier, yetz die beine hochhalten, mine schatzen . . ."

Little babies; there's one in every-other mixed lot, and it's surprising how quickly the piracy-elves in Hong Kong managed to get-out copies of the Britains baby, although I'm not sure about the middle one . . . did Britains reproduce it themselves in two sizes? But the blood-stained one to the right is definitely a copy - someone's stitched Harold Wilson's face on to the baby's head! Yes; I'm trying to avoid any mention of the red paint.

Cheers for the scan Theo; got me to pull my finger-out!

T is for Two...Paratropper Boxed Sets, or; A is for Again?

We have looked at these before here, but the abiding interest in them means that there are unlikely to be complaints about a return visit!

They are - of course - the SuperDeetail Paratroopers from Britains, but compared to the replacement set as a side-by-side....sort of!

So the six-figure set (above) as issued by Britains in limited numbers (see my thoughts on the numbers question in the link above) with two of the older Herald scenic pieces and below that the seven-figure replacement set, which had no accessories.

In total there were - effectively - eight poses, four of which were wholly dropped (kneeling firer, 1st grenade thrower and both weapon at waist poses), two adjusted/simplified (call it redesigned; standing firer and ATGW firer) and two new (2nd grenade thrower and officer). Plastic Warrior magazine No. 150 had images of a ninth pose, or the three-times sized master for one, another weapon at waist figure which never got to 54mm production size (back issues from the normal sources, or...subscribe!).

Close-ups of the figures in the earlier set, you can see how the flesh has run down the underside of the GPMG and up the side of the rocket-launcher. But note also how the catches on the webbing are over-moulded in black, the rank insignia, the elasticated cuffs of the para-smocks, they would have been fantastic figures if they'd worked and the ones that turn-up are still quite fine.

The replacement, two-each of the Toms and one officer would suggest a shortage of officers over-all, but having handled plenty of these I can say they are all about as common as each other, the counter boxes presumably balancing things out, but the grenade thrower is the harder to get a good sample of as he's the more likely to be damaged.

The pocket-catalogue image from 1978 (so 'good for' 1979), they weren't actually in the '79 pocket-catalogue! I've seen the blister-packs, and with this boxed set it would seem that the relative rarity of these is down to the counter-pack orders having probably not been fulfilled until the replacement figures were ready in the 1980's...

...which, when they arrived were still very good figures, I'm missing a pose from these here, but mine are in storage, these are some old photographs of figures I put on FeeBay at 99p, all of which went for around the 2.50 mark, which was OK, they are not remotely rare in this configuration, Note how the colours of the plastic vary from batch to batch, with the added deliberate move to brown boots and rifles on the Marines and SAS and black webbing on the Marines. Overall though they are as good as - or better - than anything Timpo was doing.

G is for Grunt

There are various stories surrounding the etymology of the term. Date-wise - some commentators (most?) state that it originated with the US Marine Corps, possibly as early as the 1900's, others wanting to date it no earlier than the Vietnam war. I've seen it reported as being created 'between the wars' - that's the two world wars for those young enough to have lived through several more recent 'wars', but yet not old enough to know that two are given a bit more prominence in history than the Bush-B.Liar adventures! While others put it down to coming into use during the Second World War.

Some say it's due to the noise a soldier makes when he lifts his pack, other sources state it's down to a WWII acronym used to designate untrained depot-sent replacements; GR - General Replacement, UNT - Untrained = GRUNT (yet they already have an abbreviation...BCR - Battle[field] Casualty Replacement), while my own preferred definition is that it's the short-form for Ground Troops. Still more will wax lyrical about pigs, mud and the trenches of Flanders?

Anyway, it's a hook to hang this post on and something the Grunts are secretly proud of, whatever the original meaning! I don't often cover new production small scale these days, Dave Keen does such a sublime job on PSR and the Forums do them to death, but these...I know how it felt to look like these....

Peter Burgner (PB Toys) was at the Plastic Warrior show last weekend and chatting in the car-park beforehand I asked if he had anything nice (he always has something 'nice'!) and he said "Yes, A Call to Arms have released a new set in 1:72 scale", as it's about ten years since anything came out of that stable, I was quite amazed and when Peter said they were Modern Infantry I was well up for a set (after I'd established they weren't a re-issue of the Britains Lilliput figures!).

In the end, as I clutched them in my mitt along with a nice German vintage spaceman with detachable (and easily lost) helmet, he let me have them...I promptly got them out to have a look and was a bit confused; I recognised them immediately, but with a head full of figures (and a room-full all around me) couldn't place them.

My brain went "Matchbox NATO paras - no, too slim, too big, no parkas...Matchbox Battlekings - no, no radio operator, no Germans...bloody-hell, it's the Britains Super-Deetail poses!"

Looked at Peter and said, 'It's the failed Britains, scaled-down?", "Yar" he said "They're good, yes?"

And as can be seen from the images above, they are good and not only the failed ones have been produced, but the final series-production ones as well, they really are rather exquisite, and - the reason for the 'hook' above - will cover the 1980's just as well as the stated 1970's. I know because I was that man!

And this is where I can have a go at the uniforms as presented...very rarely do/did British soldiers wear berets in combat, except for some urban patrolling in Northern Ireland, where helmets were considered unnecessarily aggressive or a 'red rag to a bull' and counter-effective. I believe there was some beret-wearing bravado in the Falkland Island's campaign, but there were also some nasty head-injuries.

Yet the second problem with these figures (Britians 'bad' not ACTA's) is that the webbing being worn is not the stripped-down front-pouches and water-bottle you'd expect on Internal Security troops, indeed, it's not really any kind of webbing, being neither full CEMO (Combat Equipment - Movement Order), nor the every-day CEFO (Combat Equipment - Fighting Order), with the respirator case missing on all and two figures having a water bottle where the other kidney pouch should be, something that is impossible as the two pouches were joined together with a gusset and only had belt clips on opposite ends, without one, you'd not have a belt-order of any kind!! While we all had extra pouches and customised webbing in the field anyway, so this is a sort of [inaccurate] depot 'basic-training' set-up.

Still - given that I like both the Airfix Rebs with their 'all Confederates have Boar's hats' rule and the Cherilea late type swoppet knights - who am I to pick holes!! Although...why is there a Stirling SMG on the cover? And if these are 1970's the SLR's should have wooden stock and fore-grip, not black plastic...and that's no 84mm Karl Gustave, it was twice the size and firing it like that would land you on your arse!

These are lovely figures and if you're doing the Cold War you need these, lots of them - to go with all those Airfix ex-BW Lannies and Saladins! And the webbing/helmets can be sorted with a few blobs of Green-stuff?

Thanks to PB for the figures, he has them in stock right now; PB Toys

B is for Britains Balls-up

So to a real rarity, though - not as rare as they were once considered to be? It is a fact that I'm known for my cries of; "They're not rare - it's all mass-produced plastic crap" ...whenever the subject of rarity comes up in conversation at shows, it's the cynic in me! However there are always a few pieces that really are rare, the Lone*Star musketeers for instance, and these guys. But then how rare are they really. I ask because these have quite play-worn bases which would suggest someone thought they were run-of-the-mill figures to be chucked in the toy box with all the others.

They are - of course - the first attempt Deetail paratroopers from Britains, also their first attempt at the over-moulding process making them Super-Deetail! Except they ended-up 'Super-mess'. There is no real mystery to over-moulding, Italian Army badges had been made from layers or panels of different coloured PVC for years (since the last war? - Certainly since the 1950's), which required a high degree of accuracy in placing the different layers or 'panels' of colour next to or inside each other, however it wasn't as complicated as the techniques Timpo were developing at the same time with their figures.

Not that Timpo got it all right, the finer the detail, the more likely they had problems leading to the various sandal types on the Romans or the relative rarity of the last version ACW.

So, Britains; starting to struggle in the charnel-house that was the toy industry of the late 1970's, looking around for a new angle, thought they could do better than Timpo...overnight! They couldn't...these were quickly dropped from the range and replaced with the four poses we are all more familiar with in SAS, Royal Marine and Para schemes.

Looking at them (click on the images for a larger version) it is clear that the problem is the black, which one suspects was the final 'shot' and while whether it was injected from one of the feet or the main weapon will always be a mystery, it's obvious that it had to travel the whole length of an otherwise cold moulding to produce not only the boots and weapons, but very fine detail like rank badges on the arm and a cap badge. They must therefore have had to inject at a high (higher than usual?) temperature, which then allowed the plastic to flow into places it wasn't meant to go to. Similar problems are clear with the face-vail/scarf, webbing & puttee green and the red of the berets, which has given one chap an interesting non-tactical tee-shirt!

The rumour that has grown-up around these figures is that there were 400/500 sets issued to salesman (some sources will tell you 50 sets!) and that they were given to shop/store owners. Well...there are problems with this rumour, as with all rumours given as fact in the hobby! Firstly they turn up far too often to be from a sample that small, secondly, by the late 70's Britains were a massif toy company and the High Street had already started to change under the pressure of supermarkets meaning the likelihood that Britains were still using 'travellers' to market their products is a hard one to swallow.

I would imagine that what happened was they decided to make the best of a bad job (they had already placed the image of these in the catalogue for the forthcoming season), and had a couple of workers sorting-out those that were 'passable' to cover the confirmed orders which would have come from that Winter's toy fairs in Harrogate, London and Nuremberg.

Now - I've had the displeasure of using a hot-polymer injector, albeit in another industry and for another type of product with even more variables, which regularly left me under the - idle - machine spraying lubricant in my eyes while hot-glue dripped on my fingers and I sped-up my male-pattern inherited-baldness with the aid of various sharp protuberances and the edges of the machine! So I can tell you that as the ambient temperature in the room, the running temperature of the machine and the actual thermostatically controlled (by a human) vat of granules all heated up as the day progressed the problem mouldings would have increased to the point where our girls (the sorters - lets imaging three women round a table somewhere in a corner of the factory) were throwing away maybe 9 out of 10 figures, as opposed to the 1-in-4 (or so) they had been rejecting earlier in the production-run.

As the problem had been identified and the pre-publicity was driving the need for the replacements to be rushed through, the truth is - far more boringly than the rumour - likely to be that a few thousand figures were sent out to the bigger clients (a few hundred (?) boxes), and - like the Super-Deetail Ballet Dancers - have suffered from 'separation' over the years leading to few survivors, helping the myth creationists, who can never tell you how they 'know' there were only 50 or whatever number they give you - sets, just that "there WERE that many!".

These four are also quite complicated figures, very well animated and realistic poses, with lots of under-cuts while the final four were altogether more two-dimensional, so there's a possibility that - moulding of the finer detail apart - they (Britains) were also having problems just getting these four out of the machine in one piece, looking like they were supposed to look!

Also these four came from Belgium or at least; via Belgian dealers, there is also a set for sale in the US  and while I don't know if they started their journey to the collectors table from toy shops in those countries (the downside of FeeBay is that it's getting harder to know for sure where anything was originally 'sold exclusively' as it's all gone all over the place without proper records being kept!), it's equally clear that they have got around a fair bit, which they wouldn't have, had they actually been as rare as some would have you believe.

As this is already a long article (with not enough photographs!), I'll waffle a little longer, at a slight tangent...

Take a look at your cordless kettle, grab your mobile (cellphone), check out where over-moulding is in the 21st century. They can seamlessly mould a PVC rubberised-polymer, an ABS or styrol plastic and a ridged ethylene or polypropylene (with metaflec) next to each other, sometimes (on things like 'phones) less than a millimetre thick. creating ergonomic knife handles, laptop cases, tools, toothbrushes or electronic components with tolerances in the thousandths of a mill!

And in 5 to 10 years you will be able to print your own in the corner of your living room as convergence technology makes it possible for you to download the CAD/CAM file or hand-laser scan the object you need to make or replace and then just print it out in three-D.

As a 30mm Erzgebirge wooden figure looks next to an Airfix 20mm Roman with his little plug-in shield, so these Britains rejects look next to modern over-moulding! Sadly, the economies of scale mean it's unlikely we'll see such detailed multi-shot techniques used on toy soldiers in the near future...Nokia, Lenovo or Russel-Hobbs can afford to, as they look to sell between 1 and 30 million+ units within 18 months of the product going live, I don't suppose HaT or BMC think along those lines when it comes to production numbers!!!

So there you go, not as rare as they 'used' to be! But you'll still need a friendly bank-manager to buy a full set!