The rifle he is firing is a Mauser, and Mauser's patents were good enough that the United States had to pay to build its own. In 1904 the U.S. Ordnance Department wrote to the firm asking, in effect, how much trouble it was in. Mauser came back with seven infringements in the new Springfield — five in the rifle, two in the stripper clip. They settled in 1905: seventy-five cents for every Springfield built, fifty cents per thousand clips, stopping at $200,000. It took nine payments across four years to clear the bill. When this man met an American in 1918, both were shooting a German design. Only one of them had been invoiced for it.

W. Britain has him at the moment of the shot — feet planted wide, cheek down on the stock, the Gewehr 98 fully extended with the bayonet fixed. That length is the point and the problem: 1.25 metres before you add the blade, built for the rifle ranges of 1898 rather than a trench bay, which is why the shorter Kar98a kept being pushed forward to men who actually had to turn round in a dugout. Look at his legs, too — puttees over ankle boots, not the marching boots of the infantryman advancing beside him. Leather was running short. In a diorama, set him firing across broken ground with the ammunition carrier working up behind, and put the Marine with his Springfield opposite — the same action, licensed.

W. Britain model 23136. 1/30 scale (approximately 60mm), matte-painted metal. Single foot figure standing firing on a sculpted groundwork base. Boxed.