The rifle had to sneak into existence. Hitler wanted Germany's factories focused on proven weapons, not a new class of gun, so its developers pressed ahead partly behind his back and disguised it under innocuous designations — first Maschinenpistole 43, then MP44 — labeling a revolutionary rifle as just another "machine pistol" to avoid scrutiny. When its battlefield success on the Eastern Front became undeniable, Hitler was won over, and the story goes that he himself gave it the name it kept: Sturmgewehr, "assault rifle," a term coined as much for propaganda as description. The name stuck, and an entire category of firearm took it.

The grenadier twists at the waist in a pea-dot smock and field cap, the StG-44 held one-handed as he turns — caught looking back mid-movement. He joins the other Sturmgewehr-armed figures, the Grenadier Standing with StG 44 and the Grenadier Kneeling Firing StG 44, and stands with his SS squad-mate in the same pea-dot pattern, the SS Advancing with MP 40. The turning pose earns its place in a diorama — it lets a figure react to something behind the line, breaking up a rank of men all facing forward.

W. Britain model 25159. 1/30 scale, matte-painted metal. Single figure — a Waffen-SS grenadier in pea-dot camouflage turning with an StG-44. Boxed.