The MG 42's greatest strength was also its greatest appetite. Firing at around 1,200 rounds a minute — nearly double most Allied machine guns — it threw out a withering wall of fire, but that torrent heated the barrel white-hot in seconds, and a gunner firing sustained bursts had to change it every couple hundred rounds or watch it warp and fail. German designers solved this with a barrel that could be flipped out and replaced in mere seconds, and a dedicated crewman to carry spares. That is this soldier's job: sprinting forward with a fresh barrel in its "Laufschützer" carrier, ready to hand it up so the gun never has to fall silent.

The figure runs at full stretch in a greatcoat, the spare barrel in its carrier at his side, steel helmet low. He is part of the gun team: bring him up to the Grenadier with the MG 42 and the prone MG 42 team firing, set against the American gun they answered, the "Suppressing Fire" M1919 Team.

W. Britain model 25234. 1/30 scale (approximately 60mm), matte-painted metal. Single foot figure on a sculpted groundwork base. Boxed.