Toy Soldier Art

Classic Soldier Poses, Part 1

A long time ago in what seems like a far away place, we played with plastic army men, fought battles with toy guns and watched Vic Morrow lead his squad to victory on "Combat." It all seemed fascinating.

To be blunt, even after a stint in the Army and another in the National Guard back in the days of green fatigues and steel helmets, it is still fascinating.

Part of the appeal of Toy Soldier Art are the many poses of miniature soldiers. They are supposed to reflect the activity of soldiering. Some do it better than others.

To the left are a pair of tough-looking mugs wielding what looks to be some sort of carbine. Magnified tom ore than double their actual height and width, they loom large. These are painted as World War II soldiers with leggings.

The pose is one of moving with rifle ready. It is similar to the posture we used back in our day as soldiers. Today ,they use a different pose with the barrel pointed down and the stock near the shoulder. Modern GIs are taught to do most of their firing from the shoulder. In the old days ,we learned to do some of it from the hip.

Can you imagine these two blazing away as they move cautiously forward?

These two soldiers are from Castings Mold # 5671 New Commandos. They are copies of figures of American soldiers made originally by Charbens, a British firm. Though the Brits may have gotten a detail or two wrong, it is a good toy figure that has an animated pose.

I wonder if some day I might not be able to convert some of these to Afrika Korps figures.

This next pair are from the same mold. They are charging riflemen with fixed bayonets. This is a relatively common sort of pose. You find them in many sets of army men, not to mention Civil War and Revolutionary War sets.

We painted one in leggings and one in regular boots. The photo is blown up to more than twice their normal size.

Someone forgot to tell the English sculptors that American bayonets ride under the rifle barrel, not over it. Even at that, they look pretty good. This pose can be done time and again, and it always has its appeal.

The Bayonet guy is a staple of the Toy Soldier world. There are running bayonet men and their are standing ones. The plastic Lido and Tim Mee World War II sets each have their own advancing Bayonet Guy. Contrast them to our running soldier.

There are many Grenade Guys out there. This fellow is unusual. Look at his pose. Most Grenade guys have their arm back, grenade held low, with the free arm raised. Compare the Herald "Khaki Infantry" for contrast. This fellow has it backwards. He resembles the stance of a cricket player about to throw the ball.

Cricket player? Well, that might not be far fetched. Though our man depicts an American Grenade guy, he was designed and sculpted in the United Kingdom. The British sculptor obviously thought of throwing a ball according to his own customs. He probably never served in the Army, as the British teach troops to throw grenades very differently from a cricket serve.

The Grenade guy came from Castings inc's Mold #5673 Grenade throwers.

Our shirtless mortar crewman came from the same mold as our hapless grenadier. He holds a mortar shell, and was originally part of a two -man crew. Castings only made one of the crew.

Here we have the Machine Gunner with water-cooled .30 caliber machine gun. He sits calmly firing his weapon, and what a weapon it is! You can see the ammo box on the ground and a belt of ammunition feeding into the side of the weapon. This is a pretty good model, considering the proportion of gun to man. Some toy figures have a rather small machine gun. The .30 is substantial.

And now to the last man on this page, the Flamethrower Guy. As children ,we thought the flamethrower was a miraculous weapon capable of sustained destruction. Little did we realize that its fire was of short duration. It was also a cause of trepidation for its user.

This figure is interesting because of a strange detail. His helmet is a bit deep and its rim is like a flange. The shape of the flamethrower tank is unlike any used by Allied forces. I wonder if he were originally intended to be sculpted as someone else. My guess would be a World War I Prussian Flamethrower man or perhaps a World War II German. It is easy to convert this fellow into his German counterparts.

His picture is more than twice his normal size. The soldiers on this page are about 54mm - 1/32 scale.