On the eve of the invasions of Poland by Germany and the Soviet Union, the Polish Army had 11 cavalry brigades, each of which was composed of three or four cavalry regiments. Each such regiment had a heavy machine gun squadron, which consisted of 12 machine guns, and many of these were the Ckm wz. 30. This had been the standard heavy machine gun of the Polish Army since its introduction in 1931, and was basically an improved copy of the Browning M1917. It was water-cooled, which meant it could sustain bursts of fire for longer than air-cooled equivalents, but this did mean that it was heavier, and so more difficult to move, and it was susceptible to the cooling system being damaged.

This set brings us three teams handling their weapon in different ways. The first pair as pictured above are moving it, with the first man carrying the tripod while the second carries the barrel. The second pair are using the weapon on a raised tripod, and so are kneeling to serve it. The gunner holds the weapon in the normal way while the number two feeds a belt of ammunition direct from the box. The final pair, in our second row, are also manning their weapon, but this time lying prone, with the tripod at its minimum height. Again the second gunner is feeding a belt directly from the ammunition box, which can be seen next to the gun. All these poses are really good, and do a good job of covering all the basics of using these weapons. We can’t fault the poses, but we would have liked to have seen a couple of figures bringing up ammunition. This gun could consume vast amounts of ammunition, so keeping it supplied was at least as important as the way the gun was used, and a couple of poses recognising that would have been very welcome. However, as far as they go, these are great gunner poses.

All the men wear standard cavalry uniform for the day, which dated from the mid-1930s. The standard tunic and breeches are clear, as are the spurred riding boots every man has on. In 1939, most of the cavalry still wore the old helmet in the French style, and all of these figures have this, so the uniform is perfect. Each man also has a fair amount of kit, including a bread bag, gasmask case, entrenching tool and bayonet. As machine gunners, all have also been issued with a pistol, all of which has been accurately done. The men have a waistbelt, but no braces. Usually cavalry had ‘Y’-shaped braces, but perhaps these are missing here because there are no ammunition pouches on the front of the belt – gunners were not issued with carbines. Instead, each has a single, larger pouch which would have held tools for the gun.

These figures are 3D-printed, and arrive all on a single sprue, as can be seen in our photo. What is clear is that there are a great many strands connecting the pieces to the sprue, and so a lot of time, and patience, is required to remove all the pieces, even though this is a small set with just one sprue. However, while we found this a delicate operation, everything came off without any breakages, and of course there is absolutely no flash or other material to trim once the sprue is cleared.

Once removed from the sprue, the result is some lovely figures, with good detail and great proportions. The method of production means there need be no compromises in terms of pose, so everything comes as shown above, with no assembly. We do however have a couple of small complaints about the figure sculpting. The first is that their waist belts are rather exaggerated and do not hug the body in a convincing way, and the buckle on these belts is much too large, which spoils an otherwise very pleasing appearance. Second, the feet of the two walking figures practically disappear into the ground, as if they are walking in thick mud. As can be seen, only these two figures have a base, but the rest stand without one except for the kneeling assistant gunner, who can only stay upright if leaning against the gun, although this is what he should be doing anyway.

All the guns also come complete without need of assembly, so the barrels and tripods are fixed together and cannot be altered. For the higher gun this is fine, but the lower one is positioned at an odd angle on the tripod, which is not impossible, but not ideal either and might affect stability. However, the fine details on the guns are excellent, and elements like the tripod legs are exactly as thin as they should be, so great to look at but need careful handling. One particularly nice detail is that these guns are the cavalry version rather than that used by the infantry – the difference is these have the elevation extender (for anti-aircraft use) stowed under the barrel, which is correct for the cavalry model. However, there is no condenser here for any of the guns, which is a pity. A handful of extra ammunition cases complete the set, which looks great.

Compared to some earlier figures made by this company, these machine gunners are a huge step forward in quality, despite our niggles over some aspects of the sculpting. The guns are terrific in detail and finesse, so for the most part we really liked this set. Having a couple of ammunition carriers would be a nice extra, but clearly the design of the set is focused mainly on game pieces, in which case this provides three very good sets of heavy machine gun teams.