The toad was not this. "Crapouillot" originally meant the Mle 1838 — a smooth bronze mortar that had sat in French forts for three-quarters of a century and was dragged out in 1914 because nothing else could lob a bomb into a trench. That squat thing was the little toad. The name then attached itself to the 58mm Type 2, which is strictly an error, and it stuck so completely that nobody now uses another word. Commandant Duchêne designed the 58 at the Bourges arsenal in early 1915 and the first reached the front on 18 January. It threw bombs of between sixteen and forty-five kilos — the heaviest of them barely three hundred and fifty metres.

Five pieces: the mortar, two ammunition crates and two Americans in trench waders, which is the detail that tells you what they are standing in. One has the bomb in his arms; the other has the rod. W. Britain has sculpted the crates open, which is what a mortar position looked like when it was working. In a diorama, dig them in behind a trench section. The Montana Hats artillery and Captain Truman are the same war's American gunners, a few thousand yards further back and firing something much bigger.

W. Britain model 23108. 1/30 scale (approximately 60mm), matte-painted metal. Five-piece set — a two-man mortar crew with the 58mm mortar and two ammunition crates. Limited edition of 450 sets. Boxed.