Paratroopers

There may be others out there that I haven't seen yet, but for my money, Warriors makes the best 1/35 WWII US paratroopers.

I'm not really impressed with DML/Dragon #6010 US Army Airborne Normandy 1944, the detail is really soft and their boots are horribly misshapened. #6148, US Army Airborne 1945, features sharper detail and better equipment but the boots are again their downfall. For some reason, bad feet just seem to be a hallmark of Dragon/DML figures.

Verlinden's older sets, # 215, US Paratrooper D-Day and #702, US Paratroops WWII, are really good and I recommend getting them if you can find them but their newer ones, #1745, US Paratroopers WWII Scouts and #1779, US Airborne Screaming Eagles are victims of poor sculpting, soft details and very low quality resin. I haven't seen #1927, US Airborne WWII out of the box so I can't speak for the quality one way or the other.

Based on the photos of built figures, I was eager to purchase Nemrod's line of paratroopers (kit #'s35001, 35004, 35041, 35042, 35043, 35044). However the resin resembles soft plastic, there are glaring inaccuracies with the equipment and the feet are badly misformed. You might be able to fix these flaws with a lot of time and patience but they're certainly not worth $15 or more for a single 1/35 figure.

Warriors #'s 35447, US Paratrooper Kneeling; 35453, US 101st BAR Gunner and 35484, US Para with MG are by far the best I have found with beautifully sculpted features, crisply molded weapons and equipment, realistic poses and boots that even resemble the the Corcorans in my closet. You can't go wrong with these guys! I just wish they made a few more so I could build a squad-size diorama.

Jaguar ( www.jaguarmodels.com ) and Warriors make a lot of WW2 figures. I don't remember if there are any paratroopers, though.

Esci & Italieri made some if I remember correctly. The bodies are OK but the heads need improvement, maybe Hornet heads. Otherwise convert and scratchbuild if you can't find what your'e looking for. Maybe Tamiya figures nobody wants a greater variety of figures ( pardon the pun ).

Dragon has a great selection of German troops and a set of paratroops, but I agree that American and British paratroops are hard to find. Tamiya hasn't created a new set of figures since....when?

Regards, Dan

And it ain't just GIs, there are absolutely no British Paratroopers oor Fallchirmjaegers either. Whats the dilly?

Amen to that!

I find it incredibly annoying that there are figure sets for specific German units, most of which your average person has never heard of, while good GI figures, whether leg infantry, paratroopers, etc. are few and far between. What gives?

I personally am waiting for a 1/35 set of "Devils Brigade" 1st Special Service Force figures. That'd just be too cool.

But I'm not holding my breath.