In 1882, by his own account, an American in Vienna gave Hiram Maxim some advice: if you want to make a pile of money, invent something that will let these Europeans cut each other's throats with greater facility. Maxim — himself American, born in Sangerville, Maine — went away and did exactly that. His gun of 1884 was the first that really worked, and within thirty years both sides of the Western Front were firing it at each other. The German MG08 was a Maxim built under licence; the British Vickers was a Maxim lightened. Allied correspondents named the German one the Devil's Paintbrush, for the way it painted a line across open ground.

Three men and the gun on one base: the gunner down behind the spade grips, a second feeding from the box beside him, a third prone at the rear with another. That is the crew the MG08 demanded — roughly 26 kilos of gun on a sledge mount of about 32 more, which took a team to carry, site and feed, and which once sited did not move. All three wear the 1918 camouflaged helmet. This is the strongpoint the stormtroopers were trained to go round rather than at, which makes it the natural centre of a diorama — put the rifleman out on the flank, doing in a second what this gun does in a burst. And for comparison rather than a scene, the American Vickers is the same gun in the opposite trench.

W. Britain model 23143. 1/30 scale (approximately 60mm), matte-painted metal. Three-figure set with the MG08 on its sledge mount, on a single sculpted groundwork base. Boxed.