A gun is only as good as the ammunition reaching it, and the 88 had an appetite. Each 8.8cm round was a heavy fixed cartridge — shell and case in one piece — and a battery in action could empty its ready racks in minutes, leaving the crew to haul more forward by hand. The Germans shipped these rounds in one of the war's most recognizable containers: a lightweight wicker basket with wooden corners and a stamped-steel lid, holding three complete rounds nose-down, rubber stops cushioning the fuzes. Paper labels named the round, and red lettering flagged special types like tropical loads.

The two-piece set catches the unglamorous half of gunnery: one man shoulders a shell toward the breech while his partner works low over the ready rounds. Pair it with its companion set Preparing for Action, No.1 and stand them at the 88mm Flak 36/37 to build a full crew mid-action. In a diorama the wicker containers do quiet work — a scatter of them around the trails tells the eye the gun has been firing hard.

W. Britain model 25223. 1/30 scale, matte-painted metal. Two-figure set — two members of a German 88 Flak gun crew handling ammunition, from the "Preparing for Action" series. Boxed.