Most of an infantryman's war was not battle but patrol. Day after day, small groups like this pushed out from the line to see what lay ahead — to find the enemy, screen a flank, or simply dominate the empty ground between the armies — and most patrols ended not in a firefight but in cold, tense, uneventful hours of walking and watching. By this late stage the Germans were patrolling a war they were losing, falling back across a continent they had once overrun, their ranks thinned and their veterans worn to a weary calm. The easy bearing of the man who has shed his helmet says as much: not carelessness, but the composure of a soldier who has done this a hundred times and expects to do it again tomorrow.

The two-man Heritage Classics set catches that quieter mood: one soldier still helmeted, a pack on his back and a K98k slung, the other with his steel helmet off and a field cap on, MP40 over the shoulder, walking easy. Both wear the white winter oversuit with the red arm-band. It completes the collection's patrol trio with On Patrol #1 and On Patrol #3, and moves naturally with the Snowshoe Radio Team that would keep such a patrol in contact. Strung across a snowfield, patrol figures give a diorama the sense of men covering ground — the long, wary walk that was most of the war.

Model: BBG137 / King & Country / 1/30 (60mm) scale / matte finish / 2 piece set