Although a common image of the conflict in Vietnam is of a helicopter war, it was in truth mostly an infantryman’s war, and in support of the government of South Vietnam the US sent around 2.7 million service personnel, the largest component of which were ordinary Army infantry as depicted for the first time in this set. Once offensive operations got underway, much of their activity was in Search and Destroy missions where they would patrol an area, attempting to clear it of enemy personnel. Even without enemy activity the environment was challenging, usually very hot, humid, with jungle and other difficult terrain, and the almost constant risk of ambush added greatly to the stresses those men had to endure. By the middle part of the war many of these men were conscripts, putting themselves in harm’s way where everywhere was the front line, and anyone could be the enemy.

Thanks to the large number of journalists covering the war, including the relatively new medium of television, there is a wealth of information and imagery on the ‘grunt’ in Vietnam. What is particularly striking about this material is how varied is the men’s appearance in clothing, weaponry and equipment, which gives anyone modelling them a lot of latitude, but we would expect to see that sort of variability reflected in such a set. In terms of uniform, American infantry did of course have one, but what was actually worn could vary greatly, including various hats, T-shirts, bare-chested and uniform items worn in various dishevelled ways, but in this set everyone is pretty much in regulation dress. By this period of the war this was Jungle Utility Uniform, often known as fatigues or tropical fatigues, which were only issued once the soldier arrived in country. The kit largely hides the ‘jacket’ on these figures, but the trousers have the large cargo pockets on each thigh, so from what can be seen the uniform is correct. Everyone wears the M1 steel helmet of course, with the usual cover and elastic band round the crown which was intended for camouflage but was actually used to stow cigarettes, matches, insect repellent or anything else the soldier wanted to keep dry and to hand. Everyone, that is, except for the last figure, who wears a rather obvious cavalry Stetson, and since he also wears sunglasses, has very little kit and holds a different rifle to his men, he just screams officer. When in action, which these men seem to be, such an appearance would be tantamount to suicide as he would be the obvious target for every enemy shooter, so no officer was ever stupid enough to be in the field looking like this, so he must be safely on base somewhere. Getting back to the men, lots of them have a towel round the neck as a sweat rag, which just leaves one more garment, the flak jacket. This too is largely submerged by all of the kit, but it looks like most or all of these men wear one, probably the earlier M1952 model without the neck guard. By no means all infantry wore body armour, not least because it was heavy and hot, and these men are already very heavily encumbered, so we would question whether they would also be wearing such an item, as clearly they have not been inserted by helicopter or vehicle, but are on a long-distance patrol.

With so much kit, these figures are clearly far from their base, and are carrying everything they might need for a very long patrol. This too could vary enormously, but we see here many variations on the standard M1956 webbing, including pistol belt round the waist supporting the two Universal Small Arms Ammunition Cases and often a grenade or two also, the famous ‘butt pack’, rolled poncho, entrenching tool, machete knife and many, many water canteens. Since the butt pack was quite small, several here have instead adopted the Lightweight Tropical Rucksack, sometimes attached to a metal frame. All this is correct and nicely mixed up here, and made even better by a generous selection of grenades of various types attached to various bits of kit. Some of the men wear extra bandoliers, another nice touch, since this was sometimes preferred to the standard web gear. The figure in the bottom row with the M79 grenade launcher looks to be wearing the special ammunition vest for this weapon, which held 24 rounds.

The rifles on show here (apart from the officer) are the M16, which is fine for the middle part of the war. The last two figures in the second row are handling the normal infantry automatic weapon, the M60 machine gun, and the first figure in the bottom row carries another well-used weapon, the M79 grenade launcher. Beside him is a kneeling figure about to fire an M72 LAW (Light Anti-tank Weapon), which despite the designation was first adopted by the Army in 1963. With little armour to face, this weapon was particularly useful as a bunker-blaster, and like the other weapons was in common usage at this time. The officer holds an M14, which as we have said would help to identify him as different from the men, but as the M16 was not without its critics when first introduced, some officers kept their M14 as long as possible, so this is fine, and indeed all of the weapons are good choices.

Most of the poses seem to be in action, and we cannot really fault any of them. While it is great to see a gunner’s assistant provided for the M60, he is obviously not feeding the weapon, but perhaps holding the belt up as if waiting to pass it to the gunner. This is an unusual but perfectly valid pose, so nice to see something a bit different there. Having so many men kneeling makes perfect sense, although the officer pose, nice though it is, contrasts rather with the rest of the men as he stands tall and apparently relaxed, gripping his rifle by the magazine.

In general the sculpting is fairly good on these figures, but there are some issues. Size is definitely a problem, so for example the M16 rifles vary in length between 16 and 19 mm, which is 115 to 137 cm to scale. The actual weapon was 98.5 cm long, so all of them are a fair bit too long, and the one with the longest example (figure two in row two) really looks very bad for what was quite a light rifle. The rifles are fairly well detailed, but the M60 machine gun is a bit more basic, including an unrealistic twisted bipod, and again is a bit too large, being 17 mm long (122.5 cm) rather than the real 110.5. It has been sculpted with a very large feed opening, almost making it look like it has a carrying handle like the M16. The pose firing the LAW has a weapon that is about 10 percent longer than it should be when extended like this, but two other poses have LAW tubes attached to the top of their packs – one is about the right size for the unextended weapon, but the other is a bit too short. The poorest weapon here is the M79 because, although it looks fine on one side (the side you see above), the sculptor has forgotten to sculpt the other side at all, so it is just a strip of rectangular plastic. The look of the men is reasonable but lacks the elegance of some Orion sets of the past, and a couple of the poses (third man in row one and first in row three) have no neck, making them look strange rather than like men keeping their head down. There are areas where plastic is missing, at least on our examples, so some entrenching tool handles are only part present, and the M60 gunner has items tucked into his helmet band, but is missing the band itself. Also the radio man and officer have some quite ugly damage around the upper legs (again this may vary), and there is a good deal of flash in some places, especially between legs.

The feel of this set is of a long-distance patrol having been surprised whilst on the move, as it cannot have been easy to fight with so much kit as these men have, including body armour. Only the man throwing a grenade is relatively light, and of course the officer, who is a lovely figure (the nicest sculpt here in our view), but feels like he does not belong in this set. Nice to see extra items like the spare barrel being carried by the gunner’s assistant, and the ammo belts worn by both gunners, and while there could always have been more (such as the common Claymore bags), these figures certainly give a good feel of the heavy loads such men might have to bear. The various problems with sizing and too much/too little plastic do spoil this set, which is otherwise well-researched and with good poses, so a quirky offering that may well meet a need, but without being a particularly attractive prospect for the neutral collector.