Airfix 1/32 WW2 American Infantry. Heroes In A Box From 1969.
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 ก.ย. 2024
- In 1969 Airfix released their brown boxes of 1/32 scale toy soldiers.
They were by far better then anything available at the time.
1969 saw the release of 5 sets.
-German Infantry
-American Infantry
-Russian Infantry
-British Commandos
-British Paratroops (which was the only set released in 1968)
The next few years saw the release of 4 more sets.
-British 8th Army
-German Afrika Korps
-Japanese Infantry
-Australian Infantry
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I started a Facebook group dedicated to late 60s-70s toys and toys soldiers focusing on the memories and nostaliga they bring.
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Airfix. Me and my twin brother inherited our older brothers Airfix collection in 1972 when we were ten years old. We added to the collection big time. These were fun to play with and strategize moves. Ah, nostalgia.
My next door neighbor in the 1990s was a WWII U.S. Army vet who fought in Germany at the very end of the war as a first lieutenant. I asked him over for dinner one time, and he opened up about his war experience. I asked him about German weapons. He said they kept finding these charred bodies of German soldiers, and finally figured out they had been using Panzerfausts that blew up on them. He also said he would put the M1 Carbine up against any rifle/machine gun in the war -- it's what he carried. He passed away well into his 90s about 10 years ago. BTW, I had (still have it) the 1969 box like you showed, but mine's in much worse shape.
@xkot6431 Oh dear, charred bodies. What a way to die. I hope you're neighbour had a good life. I can only imagine what he saw, or maybe I don't want to!! I'm European, but I'm proud of the fact we Brits and Americans fought on the same side. My grandfather died many years ago, but he served in the middle East after the war, during WWII he was a engineer for the RAF. I can remember the time we went to an aviation museum and he saw one of the planes he worked on, the staff showed him around with special privilege, they were so nice. It made him extremely happy that day. I'll always remember that day!
@@ronaldmcdonald8303 What a privilege to have known -- and you were related to! -- those who served in WWII. The RAF were absolute legends -- cheers to your grandfather for being part of that! Yes, my neighbor was a fine man, a good neighbor, and married to the same woman until she died of cancer in her 80s. He had previously told me funny stories of serving in Alaska at the beginning of the war when they expected Japan to attack through the Aleutian Islands, but I had no idea he'd seen combat until that one night, well after dinner, he unexpectedly opened up. He said he also helped liberate one of the death camps, but he didn't go into detail, and I didn't press him. He told some other interesting stories, but a TH-cam comment thread is not the forum to share them.
@xkot6431 Yes, your right. I can only imagine what he saw. He sounds like he was a good guy. My perternal grandfather remembered the war too. His father was shot in WWI shortly after my grandfather was born. I tried to sing up to the British army but I have autism. When I was a teenager I tried to track down a WWI veteran, but I kept getting there too late. I think a couple of the late WWI vets wives are still going though, but their getting very old.
I had all these sets! Excellent times.
Great video as always, brings back my childhood.
I went to Denmark for my 6th birthday at Christmas in 1969/70 with my uncle to stay with his Danish girlfriend, her dad painted in detail a box of these US soldier’s for me and I still have most of them after a lifetime 🎉 👏👏
Wow that´s so cool. Do you have pics of them or can you take? Share in the Facebook group?
1960s! My time as a kid. I turned in a lot of glass bottles that I had found to help pay for a Battleground army play set by Marx which I bought through a lay away plan at Winn's five and dime store in San Antonio, Texas. The set cost five dollars and took me a few months to pay for it. The last play set I got when I was a kid was a Desert Fox playset [also by Marx] that my grandmother mail ordered from J.C. Penney's for Christmas.
The fact that some of these older US infantry boxes have art of poses with thompsons and cooler machine gun/garand poses makes me sad for the poses that could have been 😢😂
I had in my hands all these sets before they were solten from me 4 years ago.A dramatic happened for my collection and or my person.
Wise kids used to make their own stands for Airfix kneeling toy soldiers (cardboard and glue usually). I didn't bother. :D
I wasn´t one of those kids :)
The bazooka figure always confused me why Airfix didn't have a base for him.He can barely stand without falling over.
There´s two great mysteries in the world. The origin of man and those damn base plates.
I’m thinking about painting mine up ? What’s your thoughts on that ?
The old soft plastic is pretty crap to paint. Both to clean molds lines and get paint to stick propperly. I would get the new 2021 set in hard plastic for painting.
I still have mine I use them as cannon fodder in wargaming. I endure heavy losses much of the time, but that is to expected when you use George Patton tactics
I can’t believe how many sets were once available.
Wonderful set...sooooooo many copies of it...😊
I believe the prone guy with the LMG is not using a 30cal.
I'll have a look around on TH-cam and get back to you.
I believe its a gun that was used in aircraft with a rate of fire of something like 1100 rpm.
Najlepsi byli marines od matchboxa..dowódca w plaszczu z coltem 1911 gosc ze smarownicą gadajacy przez radio a w skali 1/72 mieli dodatkowo dwa pontoniki...eeeeh jakie to były wspaniale dni...
US infantry is US main army
US marine is US elite army
US calvary is US armor or vehicle
US Paratrooper is US parachute devision army
I bought my dad an Airfix model for his birthday, I just need to give him the glue and cutters! I have a model shop in my town that sells models and soldiers too!
I still have the 1973 box. A great set to have!
The box art is confusing when you compare the depicted weapons with what is actually inside. The M1919 machine guns are different. The one inside seems to be the M1919A6 variant from 1943 and that is historically correct - I guess. But the one depicted on the outside has a double spade grip and as far as I know it was never equipped like that? Maybe in aircraft?
The rifle in the foreground of the box art is not a Garand. It's the old M1903 Springfield! Which is in a way correct for WW2, but it is not included in the set. As usual with Airfix, their box art illustrators never seemed to have talked with the plastic figure designers. Oh well.
Needless to say all the barrels of the carbines in my set have broken off, and it happened quite early. The later US Paratrooper set had thicker carbine barrels. I wish they had done the same with the American Infantry set.
Thank you for your review!
Lovely stuff, thanks gerry
thanks for the description of the infantry ,looks amazing 👌👍
A set copied to no end by unlicensed Hong Kong manufacturers in the 1980s. :) Btw, will we ever see the Airfix 1/32 italian infantry set reviewed (a rather rare and expensive set today)?
Yes of course I will do a video on the Italians. Hopefully not to far in the distant future.
i wish the officer had been included in the ho/oo 1/72 scale set
Good set
Not one of the great, though.
Machinegunner without ammo. Where are mg team 2 and 3?? (Rare poses anyway).
Not enough poses, 14/15 would be good ...
The poses depicted are good, nevertheless.
The set is usuable until even post vietnam, also for many other troops appearing with american, sorry, US style and equipment ...
I have been wargaming , toy soldier collecting, for nearly 50 years. These figures are my first set , in a later box , I now have 1000s of figures, but Major Brown , the officer from my original box is still with me leading forward , colt in hand
😂 Americans one set im not collecting 😂 and the Russians
Really appreciate the detail on age of boxes by the art/design - but the info on the officer variation is excellent. Thanks for the videos, amazing collection in the background.
Great you enjoyed the video :)
Great as always 👌
Interesting gen about officer 🤔
Getting back on Facebook to get on your site!
Keep filming 🎥
Great set, brings back happy childhood memories
Great video as always, can't wait for the afrika korps and eighth army vids, keep em coming boss
Soon my friend.
Love it. Thanks for the great info
only some of these would end up in second rate sets. never had a complete set of these in the states.
Another interesting video Jerry. I definitely had a "bullseye" type aet as a kid. Cheers 😊
Cheers!
i want to use the officers torso for a conversion to a british 8th army officer with airfix british para legs and a helmet and gun and waterbottle swop
HAVE A BUNCH OF THE LATER ONES IN MY COLLECTION.THE FIRST BOX LOOKS LIKE THE NORTH AFRICAN LANDING AS THE MUSTANG IS A P-51B.THE LATER BOXS IS D-DAY LANDING.I LOVE THE AIRFIX AS THEY WENT WELL WITH MY MARX ,TIMMEE,AND LIDO FIGURES.GOOD REVIEW SIR ,TAKE CARE.
Thanks. Take care!
WATCH A MOVIE CALLED "A WALK IN THE SUN" 1945 AS THESE SOLDIERS LOOKS LIKE THE PAINTING ON THE FIRST BOX.@@toysoldiernostalgia
Excellent video
Hey Jerry nice review once again. I have a question for you. Does Airfix and ESCI sometimes share the same products?
I bought my very first ESCI diorama back in 1982 (Tarawa The desperate struggle) and they have the same American soldiers included in the set. Albeit in a 1:72 scale. The only difference I can remember is that the bazooka man was standing instead of kneeling and they also had a kneeling soldier firing the M1 carbine. Aside from that every figure shown here was included in the ESCI diorama.
That I´m not sure of. There´s a realy great website dedicated to everything 1/72 toy soldiers.
Have a look there and see if you can get some insight into this.
www.plasticsoldierreview.com/ManufacturerList.aspx?id=6
@toysoldiernostalgia thanks a lot Jerry 👍😊
I wondered if that gun might be a 1941 Johnson gun and not a .30 calibre? I was a side feeding gun using clips and similar to a BAR. Not as common though. Johnny Johnson made a TH-cam video about it.
The gun is not very detailed so it´s hard to figure out what it is.
@toysoldiernostalgia it is a browing 30cal.light,Google it and you see it
From April 1943, the M1919A6 became standard in the US Army. The M1919A6 had a stock
Ah ok then I get it.
I'm curious why Airfix never did any WW2 Canadien forces. The Canadian Commandos were definitely an elite force.
There´s so many units that they could have done but when they started doing more varied themes like the German mountain troops and paras the sales had already started declining.
I always thought the Airfix American Infantry were kind of bland & a bit boring but it is shocking how many toy soldier makers globally have copied the design. You can still buy cheap soldiers on Ebay that are made in China and basically poor quality replicas of the Airfix originals.
Compared to what was available at the time I still think they are a pretty darn great set of toy soldiers.
The .30 cal M1919A6 first saw combat in the fall of 1943
That´s the stocked version?
@@toysoldiernostalgia If i remember correctly yes. Thank's for another good vid btw, they bring back a lot of childhood memories.
From April 1943, the M1919A6 became standard in the US Army. The M1919A6 had a stock
I know those guys, got em in plastic box somewhere in the cellar
Go down there and get them.
The Bazooka Soldier had his Browning Pistol as secondary weapon...those were 2 man teams and the second guy would have a rifle or smg for defence
No rifle sounds insane in combat :)
BAZOOKA TEAM JOB WAS "SHOOT AND SCOOT" OR IN OTHER WORDS"FIRE AND GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE..@@toysoldiernostalgia
In my opinion the us infantry was one of the worst sets. The only good poses are the grease gun shooting and the running one. I hated the bazooka and the m1 carbine shooting wich always broke
Not the greatest set for play but lots of fun to collect.
Vero nice set.
Cool set sir
Disappointing to not get any BAR troopers in a US set for WW2.
Couldn´t agree more.
Hello Jerry. Those Airfix American Infantry I also know them as Greek Army infantry. When I was in Greece back in my teens I bought a box of reproduction of these as Greek infantry in pale opaque white. So the box claimed as Greek Infantry. I guess back in those days post WWII Greek army was similar to the American Army. I think. Good to see some collections again.👍🇭🇲🦘🐨✌️
I think the Greek and a few other armies bought a lot of US ww2 surplus to equip their soldiers with.
@@toysoldiernostalgiaThat's true. Greece did acquire lots of vehicles and 50s and 60s Aircraft. The German army after the war started to look like the US army also as we know as the Bundeswher. If that's how it's spelt.🤔🙂👍🇭🇲🦘🐨✌️
Recently bought the newer release of this set and the price to part ratio is pretty pour, where in the original box set you get 28 pieces in the newer set you get 14
4 standing firing pose
2 crawling
2 30 cal
4 SMGs
1 Bazooka
1 officer
And 2 running pose
This is one of the classics!
Do u have the samurai toy soldier model
Not sure what samurai you mean?
Nice video... I asume as an avid collector you know that every soldier in a pack has it's an individual number? If your box is complete you should have 29 soldiers which you could line up..and that doesn't mean they have to be the same pose... ?
I guess those were the numbers on the different molds right.
@@toysoldiernostalgia No, in the mould the figures each got an individual number so one could verify during packaging that there was a complete set in the box as forseen.
Jerry, these guys actually look more like US Marines, not Army strictly speaking, still Americans of course. Somewhat inter-changeable, but still could have been better for the European theatre. A BAR guy would have been greatness. Thanks for the video!
The box art, the dramatic poses and the sound of 29 toy soliders rattlin around in the box just takes ya back dosent it? What a great time we were all blessed with back then.
We sure were :)
Instead of the pointer you have the waiver . LOL !
The vast majority of people pronounce the M1 as "GUH-rand" but in fact, the family name as preferred by the rifles invertor should be pronounced as "GAIR-end" (ɡəˈrænd) soft R, soft D, but I think the die is cast as far as how it will be remembered as being called
Great info, thanks!