What you can learn from modeling.

I have "learned" a lot from modeling catalogs and web sites. I learned that the Germans, in spite of always being lost  had great success in the early part of the war. I have been looking for figures in action poses, loading the gun on a Hummel specifically. The vast majority of figures I have found seem to be lost, ie looking at a map and pointing. I have found from modeling that German crews always had a bottle of wine on the vehicle somewhere, maybe that is why they are lost?

 American soldiers seem to have a lot of leisure time, they are almost always smoking with hands in pockets or leaning against their vehicle.

 Why do figure manufacturers seem to give us these poses? It would be nice to have some figures to add to vehicles that are doing something besides mugging for the camera. I guess I will have to learn to modify what is available to fit what I want to model.