An overhead view of the Italeri, 60mm mortar that is part of their Anti-tank Teams set, in 1/72nd scale plastic. US Army paratrooper with a 60mm mortar. They usually had a crew of five, I suppose the other four are on a break.
Italeri continues their poor research with this US Army paratrooper. He is sitting up, not unlike their US Army soldier from their US Army set. The old Esci set got it right, they usually fired these .30 caliber machine guns from a prone position so they could look down the barrel and use the sights. The machine gun can be fired from this position, when using tracer ammo like water from a water hose you can walk the rounds onto the target, but this is not the preferred method of employment. You can also fire them this way when using aiming stakes and a compass. Again, not a typical method but one that was used. The machine gun itself is excellent.
Rear view of the machine gunner, nice sculpt.
This guy could be the number two for either the machine gun or the mortar. He could be observing indirect fire from either of them. Or he could be looking for the ammo box and the ammo belt that are missing from the machine gunner. Since without them he cannot fire more than one shot.
This figure is very similar to the man in the Airfix US Army paratroopers set, only larger. He is an excellent sculpt and very well done.
4 comments:
Nice mortar, shame about the crew! I guess with a little work you could make this guy the mortar gunner and have him on the left side, steadying the bipod. The assistant gunner should be prone on the right, loading the bomb with his LEFT hand and looking at the muzzle, not his hand.....of course we don't have a spare figure to do that with anyway....! The rest of the crew are the mortar squad leader (rifleman) and two ammo bearers (carbine and M2 ammo vest)
As for the "machine gunner", well he will be useful manning an anti-tank gun, as a combat engineer or medic - just about anything except a machine gunner LOL
Italeri needs to make a "rest of the set" set!
I have fired the 1919A4 and it has a considerable amount of kick to it. The light weight tripod doesn't help control either. A prone figure with an assistant gunner and a bunch of ammo bearers would be nice. Actually, I would like to see the 1919A6 with a 2 man crew, the 1919A4 with a three man crew, and the 1917 water-cooled
as a separate set. Maybe three sprues.
Jim.
"Italeri needs to make a "rest of the set" set!"
Yes they do and in true 1/72nd scale, not these corn fed giants!
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