The M1 Carbine was made for men who needed a firearm they could carry easily and still fight with — and few needed that more than paratroopers. Light, short, and semi-automatic, it was issued widely to airborne troops, who even got a special version, the M1A1, with a folding wire stock that tucked down for a parachute jump. The trade-off was power: the little .30 carbine round was far weaker than the Garand's full-size cartridge, and some soldiers grumbled that in the deep Ardennes cold it lacked the punch to drop a heavily bundled enemy at range. But for close, fast work in the woods and villages, its handiness was hard to beat.

The figure stands and fires the carbine from the shoulder, in an M-43 jacket and netted helmet against the snow. Set him in a firefight in the Bois Jacques diorama alongside the Greatcoat Trooper Firing M1, taking direction from the Airborne Officer Directing Movement, holding the line at "Welcome to Bastogne".

W. Britain model 25125. 1/30 scale (approximately 60mm), matte-painted metal. Single foot figure on a sculpted groundwork base. Boxed.