Every American squad had its BAR man, and its firepower was built around him. The M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle — designed by the great gunmaker John Browning in the last year of the First World War — was the squad's automatic weapon, a heavy shoulder-fired rifle that could pour out .30 calibre fire to pin the enemy while the riflemen maneuvered. It was rugged, accurate and loved by the men who carried it, but it was a compromise: its twenty-round magazine and fixed barrel could not match the sustained, belt-fed torrent of a German machine gun. Still, it armed American infantry from 1918 through Korea, and the BAR man was the heart of the squad's fight.

The GI stands at ease, bundled in a long wool greatcoat with his BAR resting butt-down at his side — a big man's weapon, and a moment's stillness for the man who carried it. He belongs with the collection's other pauses, like Staying Warm at the brazier, and with the Four Man Patrol whose own BAR gunner shares his job. For the contrast that defined many a firefight, set him across from the belt-fed German gun he could never quite out-shoot, the MG34 Machine Gun Team. In a diorama he reads two ways — a quiet figure at rest, or the squad's firepower waiting to wake up.

Model: BBA118 / King & Country / 1/30 (60mm) scale / matte finish / 1 piece set