MiniArt
35126

For all of the time that tanks spent in the warm-to-hot weather of the Mediterranean, Pacific, and even the summer of 1944 in Normandy, you would think there would be more tanker figures in lighter uniforms, sans the ubiquitous winter combat jacket.

This set helps fill that void, even though two of the men still wear jackets. But hey, everyone's thermostat is set differently. They all wear the lighter weight OD herringbone cotton shirts and trousers—with the exception of the soldier with his sleeves rolled up. He's wearing the one-piece utilities with the single breast pocket. Three of the men have conavas leggings, which were typical up through the fall of 1944 before the two-buckle boots were issued.

The poses are natural and the faces are quite acceptable for a crew at rest. The features are crisply defined for plastic figures. I haven't assembled the multipart helmets on the heads yet as I prefer to paint the faces first, but I wouldn't be surprised if a bit of tweaking might be necessary to some ears to get the flaps to sit right. There's a modest amount of clean-up necessary of seams a a bit of flash, but nothing to complain about. A bit of filler helped with some shoulder/arm joints that didn't quite come together.

As usual, MiniArt includes raised surfaces for the tank and rank insignia patches, which you can attempt to paint or replace with patches from Archer Fine Transfers or other sources.

Modelers should find this to be a very useful quintet for a range of different settings.

Review sample provided by MRC.

—Tim Streeter