Monogram Pocket Force Die Cast Warriors

I was doing a bit of tidying up in the workshop, and unearthed some supposedly 1/72 figures that I was saving for a Monogram/Marx article that I had planned out in my head, but never got around to actually write.

I first read about these figures over at Small Scale World, where Hugh does a nice job of explaining their origins.

U.S. 7th Marines Vietnam (8071)

Vietcong Guerillas (8073)

U.S. 1st Infantry WWI (8075)

German Infantry WWII (8077)

Four other sets are listed on the back of the packaging, but I have never seen them being sold anywhere.

The figures are really tall, and pretty much the same as 25mm gaming figures (~1/64). The Viet Cong however, are a head shorter than the other figures which is a nice touch.

Unfortunately for the 1st Infantry set, I ended up with two of the last pose, and am missing the bazooka man. It's funny that I didn't notice for years, but now that its finally come to my attention, my collector's mentality is telling me that I should get another set to complete the full set of poses.

Old Blood and Guts

There he sat, big as life even at that distance. His hair was silver, his face was pink, his collar and shoulders glittered with more stars than I could count, his fingers sparkled with rings, and an incredible mass of ribbons started around desktop level and spread upward in a flood over his chest to the very top of his shoulder, as if preparing to march down his back too. His face was rugged, with an odd, strangely shapeless outline; his eyes were pale, almost colorless, with a choleric bulge. His small, compressed mouth was sharply downturned at the corners, with a lower lip which suggested a pouting child as much as the no-nonsense martinet. It was a welcome, rather human touch. Beside him, lying in a big chair, was Willie, the bull terrier. If ever a dog was suited to his master this one was. Willie had his beloved boss’s expression and lacked only the ribbons and stars. I stood in that door staring into the four meanest eyes I’d ever seen.

– Bill Mauldin

George S. Patton Jr. was a colorful and controversial military figure who was considered a central figure in the development of American armored warfare doctrine during, and between both world wars.

His peers in the North African Campaign included Montgomery and Rommel, but unlike the later two who have likenesses in plastic, metal, and probably resin, you'd be hard pressed to find a figure representing Patton at all.

I only know of one metal 20mm figure from Sgt Major Miniatures in the General Patton set (GUTS).

The figure is wearing a B-3 bomber jacket, and has a pair of Colt SSAs at his hips. The stars on his helmet are overscale, but can be easily removed if so desired.

A 15mm figure in the General George S. Patton set (Flames of War US885) from Battlefront Miniatures also exists, but the set is only useful because it comes with a figure of Willie which is more suitable for 1/72 scale than 15mm.

I increased the size of the figure a bit to bring it in line with Patton's actual height.

Patton had his flaws (some pretty spectacular ones at that), but I think he was a lot more complex than what detractors or conspiracy theorists make him out to be.

Document everything, leave nothing to chance...
because one day, some cockroach will crawl up
out of the latrine and deny all this ever happened.
God damn them!

Filipino Guerrillas

After the American forces in the Philippines surrendered to the Japanese, hundreds of independent guerrilla units composed of both civilian and military personnel formed throughout the Philippine Islands.

Many of these groups were recognized military forces that worked under the command of MacArthur's SWPA General Headquarters.

In 1944, the recognized guerrilla units were inducted into the Philippine Commonwealth Army to take part in operations to retake the Philippines from the Japanese.

I think that figures representing Filipino guerrillas only exist in 20mm, and are produced by Sgt Major Miniatures.

The two sets (RAID4, RAID5) are part of a line of figures that represent the forces that took part in The Great Raid.

The figures are a bit on the chunky side, but are among some of the better sculpts produced by Sgt Major for their 20mm line. Two of the figures are duplicated between the sets.

Two other sets that I purchased from the line are Raiders (RAID1, RAID2) representing members of the 6th Ranger Battalion.

I think these are the only American WWII figures in 20mm (or 1/72 for that matter) that I've seen wearing Daisy Mae hats and field caps, which is why I bought them in the first place. Unfortunately, the figures are tiny and almost like 15mm figures.

I think the two crouching poses of the second set could almost pass for 1/72 scale, but I'll probably just decapitate the other figures and reuse the heads with more suitably sized bodies.

O-I Super Heavy Tank

The actual appearance of the O-I super heavy tank has been shrouded in mystery for decades, leaving model manufacturers to produce their own renditions of the tank based on sketchy details and pure conjecture.

1/144 100 ton tank from
Matuo Kasten (マツオカステン)

1/144 100 ton tank from
Atelier Infinite (アトリエ インフィニティー)

1/144 120 ton tank from Atelier Infinite

1/72 tank from World at Arms

Recently however, records and plans related to the tank were recovered by Kunihiro Suzuki (president of Fine Molds) ^[1],[2]. The material was found at Wakajishi Shrine, built on the site of the Army Youth Tank School (陸軍少年戦車兵学校), which was associated with the Chiba Army Tank School (千葉陸軍戦車学校).

With the blueprints on hand, Fine Molds announced the release of a 1/72 O-I tank, and promoted the kit along with Wargaming.net which had announced the addition of a digital version of the O-I (drawn up from the same plans) to the World of Tanks online game.

Wargaming Japan O-I tank display
at the 2015 Tokyo Game Show

I pre-ordered the kit when it was first announced, but the model has only recently arrived from Japan, having sat in my "private warehouse" at HLJ since December.

I like the box art, but my box has an
ugly WoT advertising sticker on it...

The box contained marketing material for World of Tanks and Girls und Panzer.

招待コード を 与える 最初 の メール

Just looking at the size of the upper hull makes the model seem more like a 1/48 scale kit than a 1/72 scale kit.

The upper hull is 66mm wide!

Decals include options for six different tank units. I will go with markings for the 35^th Tank Regiment (2) for my tank.

The 35^th, along with the 34^th, 51^st, and 52^nd Tank Regiments would have been stationed in Manchuria near the close of WWII.

The other regiments represented on the decal sheet may have been among the 10 original regiments stationed in Manchuria (I didn't bother verifying if they were or not), but historically they are more closely associated with other regions like Saipan, the Philippines, Malaya, etc.

I'm assembling the tank pretty much out of the box. The instructions are straight forward, though I'm not sure why step 4 asks you to drill a hole in a location where a hole already exists.

The assembly of the 47mm cannons for the smaller turrets is overly complex, and makes the barrel structurally weak.

If you actually want the barrel to pivot, I would recommend modifying C22 so that it does not fit so tightly in C20.

The design and fit of the main gun is a lot better, but be sure to fit B11 into B20 before attaching the barrel.

The turret has a simple hexagonal cross section as shown in the plans, but I can't help but think that the actual production turret would have been more like the 6-sided turret used for the Chi-Ri.

To be continued...

I have returned

Sergio Osmeña, Courtney Whitney, Carlos P. Romulo, 
Douglas MacArthur, Richard K. Sutherland, 
William J. Dunn, Francisco Salveron

Whatever you may think of Douglas MacArthur, his return to the Philippine Islands in 1944 was a major event in the history of WWII. Sgt Major Miniatures makes a set of 20mm figures (MAC1) that commemorates this moment.

The figures from left to right, represent Major General Courtney Whitney, General Douglas MacArthur, Lieutenant General Richard Sutherland, a photographer with a Speed Graphic camera, and a war correspondent. I don't think that any of these figures are represented elsewhere in the 1/72 world.

I'm not sure if the photographer is supposed to be Gaetano Faillace who took the iconic photo of the landing, or just a generic photographer, but the sculpt bears a slight resemblance to Carl Mydans who took a similar photo at a later date.

The identity of the reporter also remains mysterious. It doesn't seem to be William Dunn, but only the sculptor knows for sure.

The sculpts are a bit on the rough side, but I was pretty much able to determine who was who, so they get a pass from me. The photographer did not have any straps sculpted on his backpack, so I just carved some lines in with a hobby knife.

To make the figures 1/72 compatible, I performed my patented height extension surgery on them. I'd say their proportions look better in 1/72 than they do at 20mm.

The generals and reporter will be painted in khaki, but I'm not sure about the photographer. The way he's outfitted really makes me think that he should be in olive drab.

Army Signal Corps Photographer

CFPU photographer with Speed Graphic camera 

Miniscale Depot

The Miniscale Depot series is a line of figures from Sirius (シリウス), with a subtitle stating that the kits were produced by Tristar Japan. The relationship between Sirius and Tristar (トライスター) is not very clear to me, but the Tristar parent company is based out of Hong Kong, and deals primarily in 1/35 WWII German injection kits, while the Japanese branch seems to include a line of 1/72 resin figures, armor, detail sets, and various hobby tools (sometimes exclusively under the Sirius brand name). I'm not sure if Tristar Japan is still in business, as the URL for their website does not exist any more.

Miniscale Depot figures were available sporadically in limited runs, and rather expensive at ¥1260 a set (for 3-5 figures). I was fortunate enough to pick up a few sets at a good discount from HLJ earlier this month.

Their earlier sets with seated tankers can be seen elsewhere, so I won't bother taking pictures of them. The newer releases seem to be distributed by Trident (トライデント) according to the back of the header card. Figures from some of their newer sets are shown below. The three figures on the left are from the German Veteran Infantry, 1944 set (72020), while the six figures to the right are from the German 352 Infantry Division sets (72021, 72022).

There was very little flash on the figures. Some light scraping with a scalpel took off what little there was. Assembly is required, with the weapon arm typically needing to be attached.

The figures are well proportioned, if a bit static, but seem to be a bit on the short side. I'm not going to bother with commentary on their uniforms other than to say that to me, they look the part of German soldiers for the period they are supposed to represent.

The only problem I had with the set is with the last figure on the right. The left hand for the figure is a separate piece, and beautifully sculpted. However...

Reminded me of Bill the Galactic Hero.

M5A1 Stuart

For whatever reason, the M5 Light Tank has not proved a popular subject for 1/72 scale kit manufacturers despite the not insignificant number that were produced during WWII.

Below are the four different models of this tank that I am aware of  in 1/72 scale. From left to right, the manufacturers are RAFM, Plastic Soldier Company, Hobby Master, and Altaya.

The RAFM M5 is from their Baker Company line of 20mm WWII products.  The 20mm designation always confuses me because some manufacturers use the term interchangeably with 1/72. Anyway, I had originally bought the tank for use as parts, but as it turned out, most of the dimensions are very similar to those of my other M5A1s. The main difference is that the hull and turret are more squat than that of the others.

All four are fairly comparable in size, though I have heard that the actual dimensions that were referenced for making the models may have been flawed.

From left to right, the tanks are RAFM, PSC (no skirt), PSC  (skirt + hedgerow cutter), Hobby Master, and Altaya.

The Altaya tank has the longest hull, though this is not readily apparent because the length of the fenders is near identical on all of the skirted M5A1s. Another outlier is the PSC M5A1, which is not as wide as the other tanks.

Altaya and PSC

The Altaya tank is decent, but it is let down by poor tracks, and a barrel that is too short. The problem with the tracks is that they are really soft, and buckle in around the sprocket wheels.

To get around this problem, I carved some bits of plastic to fit around the sprocket wheels and give the track some support from underneath.

The PSC model was built pretty much as is, but the hull and turret mounted machine guns were pretty sad, so  I replaced the barrel of the turret mounted gun with a brass Mini World barrel, and the hull gun with a white metal Sgt's Mess barrel. I also carved down the handle of the Browning to something that was a more reasonable size.

The Hobby Master M5A1 represents one of the Bear of Kinmen (金門之熊) tanks involved in the Battle of Guningtou, in which Republic of China forces crushed a PLA attempt to capture Jinmen Island. This version of the tank has pressed steel road wheels which is typical of the later M5A1s, but for some reason it retains the side skirts. This is definitely not accurate for ROC M5A1s.

Hobby Master and PSC

I believe that Mirage had plans to release injection kits of this subject, but who knows how long it will actually take for them to materialize. In the mean time, the PSC M5A1s are a decent alternative for wargaming, but maybe not so much if you are a scale modeler.