More Vickers

Continuing to build my UK Western Desert forces, I bought a GHQ pack, UK-71, Individual Heavy Weapons. Unlike the plain vanilla UK pack, this one has a dozen Vickers machine guns, which is good. However there are no loaders supplied; the same is also true of the 3" mortars, where there are 18 models, each with one crew. There are a few officers pointing, and men prone with binoculars, who can be used to add a few figure to the bases, but they still look bare. These weapons should have 2-3 man crews. You also get plenty of Bren gunners and ATRs, which are fine - I am keeping these to add variety to the infantry bases.

Vickers HMG

2" Mortars

3" Mortars

Vickers

One small gripe I have with GHQ is that their packs of UK Infantry Heavy Weapons are missing the Vickers HMG that is so characteristic of British infantry forces. The other Infantry Heavy Weapons packs - Desert, Sikh, Paras, Aussies - all feature plenty of them - eight I think. But if you want plain vanilla British HMGs, there is only the "Heavy Weapons" pack. This is one of the old style packs, with the whole crew moulded as a lump on the weapon, and in addition you only get four HMGs, along with four mortars and two ATRs. This is poor value, and in addition I don't like the style of those old packs (they were apparently created for Avalon Hill to fit with ASL).

So I have gone to Adler for a pack of HMGs (and a pack of 3" mortars as well). Adler are nice figures, the equal of GHQ in most cases, though a few of them have rather large heads. Good value too - the HMG pack had 12 guns in action, with three crews each, plus another 12 4-man crews advancing carrying the guns and ammo.