Holding an anti-tank gun against oncoming armor took a particular kind of nerve. Dug in behind a gun shield in the snow, a 3-inch crew often had to hold their fire as a Panther or Tiger ground toward them, because the M5's standard shot could rarely defeat those tanks from the front — the killing shot had to wait for a flank, a side, or point-blank range, and scarce tungsten ammunition was hoarded for exactly such moments. There was no quick escape either: a towed gun could not simply reverse away. In the Ardennes winter the towed tank-destroyer battalions paid dearly for that, and yet, gun by gun, they held the line they had to hold.

The fifteen-piece set poses the M5 and its crew in the cold — men in winter gear laying and loading the gun, spotting, and passing the laid-out rounds. It's the anchor of a winter anti-tank position: pair it with its companion set "Advance to the Rhine", the self-propelled 705th M18 that fought at Bastogne, and the paratroopers holding the town at "Welcome to Bastogne".

W. Britain model 25145. 1/30 scale, matte-painted metal. Fifteen-piece set — one 3-inch M5 anti-tank gun with crew figures in winter gear and ammunition, on sculpted groundwork bases. Boxed.