A German rifle squad was built around its machine gun, and the man walking here is the one who ran it. In most armies the rifleman was the basic fighting unit and the machine gun supported him; German doctrine flipped that logic. The squad's firepower was the belt-fed MG34 or MG42, and the eight or nine riflemen around it existed largely to carry its ammunition, protect it, and keep it firing. Directing all of it was a junior NCO like this Unterscharführer, a squad leader roughly equal to a corporal — the lowest rung of command, and the level where the German army's famous tactical flexibility actually met the ground.

The Unterscharführer walks in the same oak-leaf smock and field cap as his senior, binoculars at his chest, one hand raised mid-gesture — a squad leader in the middle of directing his men. He pairs with the Hauptscharführer Walking above him, commands the machine gun his squad was built around in the "Hitler's Buzz Saw" MG42 Team, and leads riflemen like the Grenadier Advancing with K98. Build the squad around him and a diorama gains a leader — a figure the others visibly answer to.

W. Britain model 25122. 1/30 scale, matte-painted metal. Single figure — a Waffen-SS Unterscharführer in winter camouflage, walking. Boxed.