K&C's September dispatch is heavy on the German side of the Second World War. The anchor is a substantial new anti-aircraft vehicle — the Sd.Kfz. 7/1 Flakvierling — along with two supporting infantry pieces for Eastern Front display. Alongside it are three additions to K&C's Berlin '38 Leibstandarte set, depicting the pre-war ceremonial LSSAH.

Fifteen USMC figures from the Pacific catalog are also being retired this month, which is worth flagging for anyone still building that collection. W. Britain also released this month — we covered that separately — and Tradition of London is having its best month in years, which is unusual and welcome.

The Flakvierling and Ostfront Half-Track (BBG132, BBG133, BBG139)

The anchor of the release is the Sd.Kfz. 7/1 20mm Flakvierling (BBG132) — a substantial piece of German WWII armor with real historical specificity behind it. The Sd.Kfz. 7 was a Krauss-Maffei eight-ton half-track designed originally as an artillery prime mover for the 8.8cm Flak. The 7/1 variant, which K&C has sculpted here, mounted a 2cm Flakvierling 38 — a quadruple-barrel 20mm autocannon system — on the rear cargo bed as a self-propelled anti-aircraft platform.

The Flakvierling 38 itself is one of the more distinctive weapon systems of the war. Four barrels firing in cyclic bursts produced a combined rate of roughly 1,800 rounds per minute — a wall of 20mm cannon fire designed to shred low-flying Allied ground-attack aircraft (Il-2 Sturmoviks on the Eastern Front, Typhoons and P-47s in the West) before they could reach protected armor and motorized infantry columns. In practice, the volume of fire made it terrifying in other roles too: anti-personnel work against advancing infantry, and light anti-tank against thin-skinned Allied reconnaissance vehicles. On both fronts, ground troops feared the distinct four-barreled silhouette.

K&C has sculpted the vehicle in white winter camouflage — the paint job German motorized units applied to Eastern Front vehicles from late 1943 onward, when the war on the Russian steppes had turned defensive and mobile armored columns became increasingly vulnerable to Soviet air attack. Four crew figures are included: two on the gun mount and two dismounted alongside the vehicle. The dismounted crew are painted to match — same white camo overwear, same winter kit.

K&C is also releasing two supporting figures that pair naturally with the Flakvierling for Eastern Front display:

• Ostfront Vehicle Guards (BBG133) — a two-figure set of winter-camouflaged German infantry standing sentry alongside the vehicle. Same paint scheme and kit as the Flakvierling crew, designed to extend a Flakvierling display into a larger Eastern Front vignette.
• Ostfront Skywatcher (BBG139) — a single figure with binoculars scanning the sky for aircraft. The role — visually acquiring incoming ground-attack fighters before they entered gun range — was critical to AA effectiveness in the era before radar-controlled fire.

All three fit K&C's Battle of the Bulge Germans display context but read equally well in an Eastern Front winter scene. Ordering all three.

Leibstandarte Berlin '38 (LAH-S05, LAH-S06, LAH267)

K&C's Berlin '38 series depicts the Leibstandarte-SS Adolf Hitler, or LSSAH, in the pre-war ceremonial function it served in the mid-to-late 1930s. The unit was originally formed in 1933 as Hitler's personal armed bodyguard, distinct from other SS formations, and by 1938 had grown into an approximately regiment-sized motorized formation based at Lichterfelde Barracks in Berlin. Its public visibility was heavy — parades, state visits, and the ceremonial guard at the Reich Chancellery — and the black-and-silver dress uniform K&C has sculpted was the unit's most photographed look.

Historical context worth including up front: the LSSAH began as ceremonial and grew into something else. From 1939 onward it saw combat as a motorized infantry regiment, expanded through the war into a Waffen-SS division, and by 1944 was the 1st SS Panzer Division "Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler." Its wartime record includes documented war crimes on multiple fronts, most infamously the Malmedy massacre of American prisoners of war in December 1944 during the Battle of the Bulge. The K&C figures do not depict any of that; they depict the unit in 1938 pre-war parade dress. But it would be dishonest to write about the figures without naming what the unit later became.

The three new pieces:

• Leibstandarte At Parade Rest, Set of 4 (LAH-S05) — four figures in the standard parade-rest stance, rifles grounded
• Leibstandarte At Attention, Set of 4 (LAH-S06) — companion four-figure set in the at-attention position, forming a full formation together with S05
• Leibstandarte Staff Officer (LAH267) — an officer figure in dress uniform to command the formation

Together the three sets give collectors a full nine-figure ceremonial formation for a Berlin '38 diorama.

Being Retired — Fifteen USMC Figures

K&C has also announced that fifteen figures from its USMC catalog are being retired. If you have been building a Pacific-theater Marine display and want any of these, now is the time — once K&C stops production, remaining inventory is what exists. I currently have most of these in stock at Breagans, and I have more inventory coming in next week for the ones already sold out.

The full retirement list:

• USMC058 Wet Weather Patrol
• USMC059 Lt. Col. Lewis "Chesty" Puller
• USMC060 Marine Officer with Camouflage Poncho
• USMC061 Standing Marine
• USMC062 Marching Marines
• USMC063 Walking Marine
• USMC064 Standing Ready Marine
• USMC065 Stand-At-Ease Marine
• USMC066 Watching Marine
• USMC067 Walking Marine Sniper
• USMC068 Walking Marine Officer
• USMC069 Walking Marine Sergeant
• USMC070 U.S. Marine with B.A.R. (Browning Automatic Rifle)
• USMC071 Pointing Marine "Gunny"
• USMC072 Shouting Marine Officer

The one worth calling out by name is USMC059 — Lieutenant Colonel Lewis "Chesty" Puller. Puller is the most decorated Marine in Corps history: five Navy Crosses (he is the only man ever to receive that many), an Army Distinguished Service Cross, a Silver Star, and a long list of others. He fought in the Banana Wars, the Pacific island campaigns of the Second World War (Guadalcanal, Peleliu), and Korea (Chosin Reservoir). If you do not own a Puller figure yet, this is the last window while K&C's tooling remains.

Passing on This Month

Two other K&C threads are getting September additions that I am not stocking. I want to be transparent about which:

The Warriors of Bushido — K&C's samurai and feudal Japan collection continues to grow, and the sculpting is excellent. I would like it to sell at Breagans. It does not. I have carried a handful of pieces on presale for several months and have not received a single order. I am not adding to the presale list this month.

Sharpe's 95th Rifles — the K&C Sharpe-tribute Napoleonic British riflemen. Lovely sculpts. But British Napoleonic simply does not move at Breagans — French Napoleonic sells reasonably well, and I am building that out (see the June and August dispatches), but Wellington's army does not have a natural audience among my collectors. I have passed on all of these.

If either line interests you and you want the September figures specifically, I can order them in on request. They are not going into permanent inventory.

That is the September dispatch. The Flakvierling is the anchor and my personal highlight of the release, the Berlin '38 additions round out that pre-war ceremonial collection, and the retirement list is a chance for Pacific-theater Marine collectors to fill gaps before K&C stops making these figures at all.

If you want help pairing any of these into a specific display, or you have questions about a retired figure I might still have in stock, write to me at daniel@breagans.com.

— Daniel