On the Eastern Front, German soldiers happily turned their enemy's guns against him — and the Soviet PPSh-41 was the prize catch. The "burp gun," as both sides called it, was crude, cheap, and stamped out by the million, but it was rugged, reliable in mud and deep cold, and fed from a 71-round drum that gave a soldier far more sustained fire than the 32 rounds of a German MP40. The Wehrmacht captured them in such quantities that it officially took the type into service and even rebuilt some to fire German ammunition. There is a quiet irony in it: the army that prided itself on engineering reached for a rough Soviet weapon because, up close, it simply worked better.

The figure holds the PPSh with its unmistakable drum, in a camouflage smock and overseas cap, ammunition pouches at his belt. Set him in an Eastern Front squad with the Grenadier with MG 42 and the Grenadier Directing with StG 44 — and across the collection he mirrors the same battlefield scavenging as the U.S. Infantryman with a captured Panzerfaust.

W. Britain model 25075. 1/30 scale (approximately 60mm), matte-painted metal. Single foot figure on a sculpted groundwork base. Boxed.