The rifle grenade gave the infantryman his own pocket artillery. Clipped to the muzzle of an M1 Garand, the M7 launcher threw a Mk 2 fragmentation grenade well past 200 yards — where a strong arm could manage barely 35 — and the M9 anti-tank grenade could crack a bunker or a light vehicle. In the house-to-house fighting through Germany's ruined towns, that reach mattered: a rifleman could put a grenade through an upper window or over a wall without stepping into the open to throw it. When the Americans ground into Aachen in October 1944, the first great German city to fall, this was exactly the kind of close, patient work that took it.

The figure moves through the brick and timber of a shattered street, the M7 launcher and grenade fitted to his Garand, in an M1943 field jacket, netted helmet and web gear. He is built for an urban-combat diorama alongside the Company Officer Looking Around the Corner, the Infantryman Advancing with Caution, and the NCO Crouching with Thompson — a squad clearing a ruined town, set off well by W. Britain's damaged stone- and stucco-wall accessories.

W. Britain model 25305. 1/30 scale (approximately 60mm), matte-painted metal. Single foot figure on a sculpted groundwork base. Boxed.