The assault rifle was born on the Eastern Front, out of hard experience. German infantry there kept running into Soviet troops with far more close-range firepower — semi-automatic Tokarev SVT rifles, and whole companies armed with the drum-fed PPSh-41 — and the German rifleman, working his bolt-action 98k, was simply out-shot at the ranges where much of the fighting happened. The army needed a weapon with a rifle's reach and a submachine gun's volume, and the StG 44, designed under Hugo Schmeisser around a new intermediate cartridge, delivered exactly that. Cheaper and quicker to stamp out than the 98k it was meant to supplement, it pointed the way to the future — and, in one of history's ironies, directly influenced the Soviet AK-47.

The figure stands with the StG ready, a Zeltbahn over his greatcoat against the cold. Group him with the kneeling Grenadier Firing StG 44 and the very weapon that inspired his own, the German NCO with a captured PPSh-41 — holding a winter line against the U.S. Infantryman, Winter.

W. Britain model 25275. 1/30 scale (approximately 60mm), matte-painted metal. Single foot figure on a sculpted groundwork base. Boxed.