Orion has been doing a range of Vietnam War soldiers. This is the most recent one I have obtained. It is US Army Infantry, middle war. This would place them at about 1965 to about 1970. The M16 entered service in 1964 and made it to Vietnam in 1965. In a couple years the M16 had replaced the M14 series as the standard service rifle for the US Army.
The first few shipments of the M16 rifles were shipped without cleaning rods, someone seemed to think it was self-cleaning and did not need a cleaning rod. As a result, the rifles would jam and it could be difficult to remove an expended casing. The ammunition that was issued was different from that used in testing and was more prone to creating carbon build up, resulting in jammed rifles. Once this was sorted out the weapons served well for the next 50 years, but it started with a poor reputation. I used them many times in the Army, never in combat, I served mostly in peacetime, and found it accurate and reliable.
US Army Infantry walked most short to intermediate distances and carried lots of gear with them.
These figures have very little flash, and are well animated. They have a nice selection of weapons for the average squad. You get three of each pose shown on this sprue and one each of the command sprue, not shown in this posting.
2 comments:
Great review and figures. Thanks for sharing! Do you have Orion's early Vietnam infantry with M14s too?
Of course. They will appear in due time. Thanks for reading Roger.
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