PMMS
Dragon
Advance to the Rhine
U.S. 1st Army at Remagen 1945

Dragon Kit No. 6271
1:35th Scale
Review by Terry Ashley

This latest set of US figures from Dragon has six late war GI figures during the advance to the Remagen bridge in 1945.

The set includes five infantry and one medic all wearing the M1943 jacket and trousers, M1 steel helmet and 1943 ‘olive drab’ webbing with one also wearing a wool overcoat over his uniform and are armed with either an M1 Garand or M1 carbine.
The medic figure has additional satchels for his equipment and two others wear the six pocket cotton bandoleers as well as the normal belt ammo pouches.

Poses are all quite casual with four standing and two kneeling with one using binoculars to scout ahead and the other kneeling figure has a back pack radio relaying a message. A small decal sheet with red crosses is provided for the medic’s helmet and arm band but these are the only insignia provided.

There is also a wide selection of personal equipment such as water bottles, first aid pouches, entrenching tools and equipment packs to add to the figures as you see fit with four M1 Garands, two M1 Carbines and two M1937 BARs included to arm the figures.
The bandoleers are broken down into two pack segments which help in attaching these to follow the body contours for a natural sit.

Each figure is broken down with upper torso, separate legs, arms and heads with separate helmets as well as the overcoat having four separate lower sections to give excellent definition to the coat with realistic openings on the finished figure. These coat sections have locating lugs that fit into corresponding holes in the upper legs and you should make sure you fit the segments in the correct position to get the fit and sit of the coat right; each is clearly numbered to help with this.
One minor issue with the coat is that the lower pockets have raised outlines but these are actually on the inside of the real coat and are not visible from the outside except for the pocket opening flap, this would be easy to remedy by smoothing out the raised pocket outline.

The figures are moulded in “normal” hard styrene plastic and the details on the figures is excellent with well defined pocket, lapel and other details including fabric seams on the trousers and arms with realistic fabric folds and well proportioned anatomical features and good facial features.

There is the normal moulding seam to be removed from the parts which is very easy to remove using an X-Acto #11 due to the hard plastic but take care not to compromise the detail while removing the seams. Thankfully the mould seams are in different places to the fabric seams in most cases to help preserve the details.

Three of the M1 helmets have webbing included but this is not well defined and the mesh oversized but should do the job with careful painting while the details on the packs and pouches is nicely done with just the mould seams to be removed.

The weapons are also well detailed and measure out to the correct 1:35 scale size with just the slings from tape or lead sheet to be added for some nice looking weapons that add to the overall good feel of the figures.

Assembly of the figures was straightforward with a good fit of the parts and no filler required for the two figures assembled to test the fit and only some very minor trimming needed on the shoulder joins. Some of the equipment such as packs needed to be trimmed to either fit together or the sit better on the body and test fitting would be advised before gluing to determine if any trimming needed?

A large full colour sheet is included showing front and back illustrations of each figure that show the parts called out by number as well as providing a painting guide to make the assembly quite easy.

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Figure A during and after assembly

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Assembled figure D
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Conclusion:
Overall an excellent set of figures with a very good level of detail on the uniforms and weapons with the treatment of the overcoat being very good with assembly and cleanup being very easy due to the use of “normal” hard plastic.

This set will be welcomed by Allied fans for any later war scene and can be used together to form a self contained scene or with other figures in dioramas.

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Figure set courtesy of my Credit Card


Page created 25 July 2005

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