Artillery killed more soldiers than any other weapon of the war, and it did so blind. The guns sat far behind the line and never saw their targets; a forward observer did the seeing, and a thread of copper wire carried his corrections back to the battery. Cut the wire and the guns fell silent. The German army built its fire around the Feldfernsprecher 33, a rugged field telephone introduced in 1933 to replace First World War sets — thirteen pounds of Bakelite, hand-crank generator and press-to-talk handset, strung point-to-point or patched through a switchboard that could link twenty stations to a single command post.

The kneeling officer presses the FF33 handset to his ear, the Bakelite set open at his knee — the moment a fire mission is passed. Post him behind the guns to make a working battery: run his wire to the 88mm Flak 36/37 and its crew Preparing for Action, and his corrections become their falling shells. He is the link a diorama usually leaves out — the reason the guns knew where to shoot.

W. Britain model 25212. 1/30 scale, matte-painted metal. Single figure — a German artillery officer kneeling with the Feldfernsprecher 33 field telephone. Boxed.