Monday, April 6

Alpine's new tankers ponder the dangers of smoking on the battlefield in their three new releases

Alpine Miniatures has four very nice looking figure sets newly on sale this month. A  1/16th scale Grenadier we have already previewed and this pair of /35th scale American G.I. Tankers sold by themselves or as a matching pair. Let’s have a look at them in our preview…


 
Alpine Miniatures seven new February 2015 items

US Tank Crew #1
#35190
1/35th scale
The pictures show the figure with 2 different heads.
Sculpture by Taesung Harmms / Boxart by Man-Jin Kim 
Seen in a winter setting, this soldier is definitely making the most out of being out of the tank with his warm beanie on under each of his M1 helmet – either the bare helmet or the US Tank Helmet M-1938 which has the “US Resistol “goggles on the top for that extra bit of detail. As well as helping you differentiate him as being a tanker.
 
This tanker wears a Winter Combat Jacket with some boots and winter overshoes wrapped around them which his long baggy pants are tucked into. The sculptor Taesung Harmms has made these with just enough wear around the knees as well-worn pants (probably a bit unwashed as well) might look like after a long time on the front.
He also has some very thick gloves on his hands so as to ward of the cold and to handle anything hot inside the tank. From the patch on his and his companion’s sleeves you can see that this soldier is from the “Spearhead” division of the US army during the European campaign in WWII. These guys saw a lot of action, and his M1 carbine with a spare ammo pack attached to it he wears over his shoulder tell me his is “injun country” as they called the front.

US Tank Crew #2
#35191
1/35th scale
The pictures show the figure with 2 different heads.
Sculpture by Taesung Harmms / Boxart by Man-Jin Kim
This second soldier in the set from the US 3rd armoured tankers has the choice of two heads just like the first figure. Again the choices are the padded tankers helmet and the steel M1 standard issue. This time the goggles are on the front of the M1 tanker’s helmet and the tanker’s helmet is bare. It is differences like this to men in the same setting that make me appreciate Alpine’s thinking when conceiving their figure sets. They all match but they ALL are different subtly to each other.
An interesting thing about the tanker’s helmets is that they were actually issued with the tank rather than to each soldier. They were made by four companies; Rawlings Manufacturing Corporation, Sears Saddlery Company, Wilson Athletic Goods Manufacturing Company, and A.G. Spaulding & Brothers. Though essentially built to the same specifications, there were slight variations across the four manufacturers in terms of small details.
This soldier is wearing what looks like a U.S. M43 field jacket which hangs loosely open over his battledress shirt and baggy olive drab pants. The jacket is very nicely draped open and tucked in behind his arm that sits in the pocket of his pants. The collars, lapels and pockets of this jacket are very nicely wrinkled and pulled as they would be if this was a well-worn item of clothing on a living person.
In turn these pants are loosely gathered over his tanker’s winter shoepac boots. He looks a little more casual about his surroundings as he has a smoke and looks off into the distance, maybe pondering what is mate is on about.





US Tank Crew Set


#35192
1/35th scale
The pictures show the 2 figures, each with 2 different heads.
Sculpture by Taesung Harmms / Boxart by Man-Jin Kim
This new set of two individual tankers from Alpine features two soldiers of the “Spearhead” division of the US army during the European campaign in WWII – these two are shown at rest looking on. There are four heads to choose from, two each – and they have been painted here by Man Kim-Jin who has done some great work in bringing them both to life so well.
These two figures make for a natural pair with Alpine’s other set of two tankers from the 3rd Armoured division we reviewed a while back although these again have different options in clothing to this similar seat which is really thoughtful of the sculptor to make these slight differences in case you wanted to combine them. Nice!
All of these are now available from Alpine Miniature’s Distributors worldwide…