One of these two carries a weapon that tells a story of German catch-up. Germany had gone to war in 1939 with the bolt-action Karabiner 98k — accurate, reliable, and a shot at a time — while the Americans fielded the semi-automatic M1 Garand and the Soviets the SVT-40. Outgunned in volume of fire, German designers hurried to respond, and the result was the Gewehr 43: a gas-operated semi-automatic rifle that borrowed its gas system straight from captured Soviet rifles, feeding from a ten-round magazine. It was a good weapon — but it came too late and in far too few numbers, barely 400,000 against the millions of Garands, so the ordinary German soldier fought most of the war still working a bolt by hand.

The two-man set — part of K&C's matte Heritage Classics range — shows the pair picking their way across the snow in white winter oversuits with the red identification band, one with an MP40, the other shouldering the Gewehr 43. It leads the collection's patrol series with On Patrol #2 and On Patrol #3, and sets up a telling contrast with the American rifleman whose M1 Garand the G43 was racing to match — the Bulge collection's Standing Rifleman. In a winter diorama, two men threading a snowfield make the quiet, wary heart of a patrol scene.

Model: BBG134 / King & Country / 1/30 (60mm) scale / matte finish / 2 piece set