This is a World War Two German soldier by Odemars. He has a Vampire device. It consists of an MP44 assault rifle with an infra red light and infra red scope on the top. It shines a light that is not visible by the naked eye and by looking in the scope you can see what the light illuminates. The Germans used these in very limited numbers late in World War Two. They also used them with the SdKfz 251 halftrack for driving and the machine gun. The Panther tank also had these installed very late in the war for driving and the gunner. When used against American units the Germans were overwhelming. Imagine being able to see and shot the enemy when he cannot see you. Very terrifying and a huge advantage. Not unlike the US Army vs Iraq many years later.
I like to sometimes include odd bits of equipment with my troops so that they can give the wargame a dimension that they don't usually have. Most armies in WWII had some kind of secret weapons projects that were little used or maybe never got off the drawing board. Toss one or two of them into your next wargame and sow some confusion in the ranks of the enemy.
Odemars figures are sold direct by Yves at boiteplastic@aol.com
2 comments:
The Germans put the light source on the sdkfz 251 and the receiver on the Panther. This is really slick, because the receiveris completely passive while you can detect and IR light source with the proper equipment.
Jim.
Yes, the Germans did that two. They had large infrared search lights mounted on halftracks that would shine the light towards the enemy and they Panthers could pick up the image with their optics. Return fire at the Panthers muzzle flash would not harm the lights.
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