When Germany went to war in 1939, North Africa was not on anyone’s mind. Hitler would in time attack west to avoid a two-front war, but ultimately he was interested in striking east, so when his arrogant ally Mussolini got into serious difficulties while trying to invade British-controlled Egypt, he felt obliged to send German troops to assist, initially to simply stop further British advances. In the event this force, soon named the Afrikakorps, would do much more than that, and establish a name for itself as well as it’s commander – Erwin Rommel. The tide of war would swing dramatically on several occasions, but in the end the Axis forces, including the Afrikakorps, could not prevail against the British and their empire, and in May of 1943 they surrendered, ending the war in North Africa.

Although only existing for just over two years, the uniform of the Afrikakorps was not entirely static. They began the campaign in a uniform based on the colonial uniforms worn by the European imperial powers, but this was soon adapted to the gruelling circumstances of warfare in North Africa, and the men quickly found ways to be more comfortable in their attire. The eight poses in this set display quite a broad range of uniform, some of which is more appropriate to one part of the campaign, but it was normal to see many styles of dress within any given unit, so we liked the variety here. Two of the figures wear the tropical helmet, which was issued from the beginning, but was soon rarely seen in battle, though still quite common in rear areas. Just one man wears the normal steel helmet, which obviously gave good protection, but was not the most comfortable in the African heat, which leaves four ordinary troops wearing either the sidecap (Feldmütze) or the popular peaked cap (Einheitsfeldmütze). We were pleased to see a couple of the poses wearing goggles, and a third with them on his helmet, and also that one man has tied a scarf or similar round his mouth to keep out sand and dust. Five of the privates wear the tunic, and two wear just a shirt, which is fine. Some wear long trousers, and some wear shorts, all of which are longer than those issued, so are probably either Italian or captured British garments, which were more popular than the issue variety. Two poses wear the long laced desert boots, which are correct but were not popular, and the rest of the privates all wear anklets, which were again issued but equally unpopular, so we were surprised to find so many of them here. Photos suggest the men usually wore trousers over short boots, or socks with shorts, so this is a strange decision, though not incorrect. Lastly, the officer wears standard officers peaked cap (Schirmmütze), tunic, breeches and laced boots, and so is authentic, although as with the rest of the army, dress could change with personal preference.

Most of these figures carry the normal bread bag, gasmask cannister, and water flasks (two on each man, which was common and good to see here). One man has an entrenching tool, and three have a steel helmet attached to their gear. Those with a rifle have the rifle pouches on the waist belt, and those with submachine guns have the appropriate pouches too. Both the machine gunner and the man with the flamethrower have a pistol on their belt, as they should, and we were pleased to see one man with a couple of grenades tucked into his belt. The officer has the pouches for his submachine gun, a map case, pistol holster and binoculars with case, so like the men he is correctly kitted out.

Three men carry a rifle; two look to be the Karabiner 98K, while the third, with a small magazine under the barrel, we could not identify. The kneeling sniper has a sight attached to his rifle. Apart from the officer, two of the privates are armed with submachine guns, and the last man in our top row is carrying an MG34 machine gun, which has a drum magazine attached. The man next to the officer has a Flammenwerfer 35 flamethrower, which had a main tank holding 11.8 litres of fuel, and a smaller tank holding 5 litres of the propellant. It has been correctly depicted here, and is a fair choice as this was the standard flamethrower early in the war, though the later replacement would also have been appropriate.

While there are only eight poses, all of those here are pretty reasonable. The sniper and flamethrower are ones we don’t see often in sets of Afrikakorps, and as usual we are not big fans of the officer firing his pistol pose, because while this is something of a classic for officers in military miniatures, and it does easily identify the man as an officer, that could be a disadvantage when the enemy are looking to shoot down officers, and a pistol is not much use at anything other than short range, which is not normal battle conditions in the desert.

The sculpting of these figures is pretty good, with good overall proportions, but the detail is a little soft in places – some hands are quite poor. However there has been some good attention to detail, such as the man who wears a decoration on his tunic pocket, and the machine gunner with an ammo belt round his shoulders, so there was plenty of effort in creating these figures. Mars also made this set in 1/32 scale, and while those figures are slightly different in minor details, they are 3D printed, and look excellent, rather putting their smaller cousins to shame. Amongst the lost detail is the carrying strap for the machine gun, which in this set does not reach from the shoulder to the weapon, and some kit is different too. Nevertheless, without comparing them to the larger scale, these certainly count as good sculpts, and for the most part they are relatively little troubled by flash. However, the third man in our top row is an exception, having a good deal of it, and in our sample this figure was separate from the rest of the sprue, so presumably had particular difficulties during production.

When manufacturing a subject that has been made many times before, a maker must presumably decide if they want to make a general set, which will duplicate many standard poses made by others before them, or provide something not previously seen. Although this set contains a number of fairly ordinary action poses, it does not unduly repeat the output of others, and includes some quite unusual choices, so does bring something new to the market. Unusually, the box artwork, which is terrific, accurately tells you almost exactly what you will be getting, which is always nice in our view. So this set has no accuracy problems, good poses and good sculpting. Despite being one of many such sets for the Afrikakorps, it more than holds its own against the competition, and delivers some interesting and useful new figures for a subject that has proved perennially popular with modelers.