Having only gained its freedom in 1918, Finland faced an increasingly hostile Russia in 1939, and would find itself spending much of the next six years defending itself from its enormous neighbour. It did so with a very small armoured force, since with a population of less than four million people, it had no domestic tank-building capabilities, and had to purchase what tanks it had from abroad. Initially this amounted to a few light tanks, but later the arsenal did improve, in large part thanks to machines captured from the Red Army. However, the terrain and conditions in Finland meant armoured warfare played a lesser role than it did elsewhere, and the Finnish Army remained primarily an infantry force throughout the period.

Perhaps due to its small size, there was no special uniform for tank crew in the Finnish Army, so they wore what the rest of the army wore. During World War II this was the 1936 uniform, which is what we find on these figures. Several wear the ordinary army tunic with breast and skirt pockets, and most of these also wear breeches (while breeches were regulation issue, they were not popular, and many chose to wear trousers instead). For many of these poses however, it looks like the preference is for overalls, just as in any armoured unit of the day, so makes sense here. These follow the standard design of having two breast pockets, two rear pockets on the trousers and probably two side pockets too. Half the poses are wearing the standard peaked m/36 field cap, and the last figure in our third row, whom we take to be an officer, wears a sidecap instead. The rest wear captured Soviet tank crew helmets with the characteristic three padded strips, which was also commonly seen. Finally all wear standard army long boots, some with trousers tucked in and others with them outside.

As usual, there is hardly any weaponry or kit on display on these tank crew. Items of kit about the body made it difficult to move inside a tank, so the only item everyone here has is a holstered pistol. This is fine, but we would have expected to see some evidence of the knife which many service personnel carried as a matter of course.

Orion had made many sets of tank crew by the time this one came out, and the poses are all very familiar. Since the men are obviously not in action, we get instead a selection of men working on their machine, relaxing, reloading or just sitting. Past sets had a man using his pistol, but we have never liked that pose much, and happily it is not in this set. However, another pose that does not find our favour is here, and that is the running man in the top row. The idea is fine, but the pose is very poor because arms and legs are not in sync, so in our view this is the weakest of the otherwise perfectly natural and usable bunch.

The sculpting is for the most part pretty good. Poses are nice and natural, proportions are good, and the detail is clear and plentiful. These are not complicated uniforms, but the folds of the clothing all look good, as do the figures as a whole. What does let the set down, however, seems to be the mould-making. To begin with, while many of the seams are very clean, there are some very large tabs of flash in places, several of which are clearly visible in our images. In addition, some detail seems to have been damaged, so for example the helmet of the man holding his watch (third row) has lost all definition at the front, and while the officer has a cross belt across his chest, there is none at the back. The pictures of the sculpts on the box prove this detail was sculpted, so errors in production have caused these issues.

Model shows and competitions are awash with models of armour from the big nations of World War II, so a project based on one of the smaller nations makes a refreshing change. The same is true with crew figures, and these Finns are well-researched and mostly in great and natural poses. The very good sculpting has been partly damaged by poor mould-making in places, but with a bit of remedial action these are still perfectly attractive figures, and while they were not a major component of the armed forces of Finland, they still had their part to play, and have been nicely depicted here.