Strelets have failed to identify the nationality of this set, but it is clearly Americans on show here, and so joins the three previous sets made by them on the same subject. This time the theme is defence, and for the early part of World War II, defence was very much the main activity, as the thinly-spread US forces tried to hold back the Japanese sweeping across the Pacific. That defence would be brave and tenacious, but ultimately untenable as the Japanese conquered such territories as the Philippines and the island of Guam, but the look of those troops was quite distinctive in those early campaigns – once the US began to counter-attack, and to operate in Europe, that look would be quite different.

Defending a position implies staying put and giving as much firepower as possible, and almost every pose in this set is apparently in the act of firing their weapon. These are of course all very solid and necessary poses for any battle, and we liked the fact that so many of them are keeping low as they fire. The soldier firing on his knees might not be a particularly common sight, but everything here is easily useable, and not only for defence. About the only obvious missing element is a man to provide support for the BAR, but that is a common fault of sets such as this. The officer is in a classic pose of holding binoculars and pointing at something, which might be a cliché, but is still perfectly likely.

As with the previous sets on this subject from Strelets, every man here is wearing tropical shirt and trousers, as was normal wear in the theatres that saw action in the first months of the war. Most of the men wear long leggings, although they were not well liked, and some wear the M1917 steel helmet which was still in use at the time. However, a surprising number (five of the poses) wear instead the Montana-peaked campaign hat, which by 1941 was only on limited issue, and while it was worn behind the lines, no one, including officers, wore them when in contact with the enemy. For the most part the men wore overseas caps when out of action, of which there are none here, but when in a fight it should have been helmets all round, so the designer seems to have been keen to show this iconic element of uniform, even though it is inappropriate here.

The men are lightly equipped, as was normal, with mostly a single water bottle on the right hip and a haversack hanging on the left side, though there is a little variety here. Where visible, all the men wear the standard cartridge belt round the waist, which held rifle ammunition clips. The trouble is, many of these figures do not carry a rifle, but instead some other weapon for which this belt would be useless. There is little sign of any of the special pouches that the weaponry shown here would have required, so many of these men have no more than one magazine of ammunition!

Speaking of weapons, we find on these poses four rifles, three Thompson submachine guns, two BARs and a heavy machine gun. The rifles are presumably the usual Springfield M1903, but the Thompsons consist of one of the older M1928 models with drum magazine and forward pistol grip, plus two of the later ones with a straight magazine. The older model was still common in 1941, so it is nice to see it here, but it must be said that such weapons were mostly carried by squad leaders, and so are somewhat over-represented here by being on a quarter of the poses. Having two of the Browning Automatic Rifles is also an extravagance, since the normal squad of 12 men only had one such weapon. The heavy machine gun mounted on the low tripod looks to be the .30 calibre M1919A4, which is a fair choice. All the weapons are good for the period, but the numbers of each do not reflect the typical reality, which some may find annoying.

The sculpting is very much on a par with the previous sets on this subject, which means they will blend well with those figures, but also means it is not of the highest quality. Detail is mostly there but sometimes vague and can occasionally look a bit clumsy. The only assembly is to mount the heavy machine gun onto the tripod, and this requires the hole in the tripod to be expanded a little, which does mean you get a good tight fit once the peg can be persuaded to go in. One problem with this weapon, however, is that the gunner’s assistant, who is feeding the ammunition belt, is on a base like the rest of the men, but the gunner himself, along with his weapon, is not, and so consequently the belt is being fed far too high – it would be perfect if the gun was elevated by a base like the rest of the men. Why manufacturers keep making this mistake we do not understand, but it is very frustrating that they do not think of these things in advance. As so often, the story of the quality of the mould is a mixed one. Some of the seams are relatively clean, but in places there is a considerable amount of flash, so a lot of cleaning up would be required to get the best out of these figures.

None of the rifles have a bayonet attached, which is fine, but we do not see any evidence of a bayonet or knife being carried by anyone either, which is surprising. While the disproportionate presence of submachine guns and support weapons can be resolved by mixing with figures from other sets, the Montana campaign hats are a much more difficult problem to solve. From a distance these are nicely posed soldiers, but a closer inspection makes apparent the less than spectacular sculpting and the fair amounts of flash, so this is not a set which looks particularly good, but does provide a lot of very worthwhile figures.