After an early experiment with training men from the native infantry battalions in Libya as paratroops in 1938, Italy’s first official paratroop school was opened in Tarquinia in August 1939, and began training recruits in July of the following year. After various reorganisations, the first airborne division was created in September 1941, and would be given the name ‘Folgore’. In 1942 the Folgore were redesignated as 185th Divisione Paracadutisti Folgore, and a new paratroop division, the 184th, was officially created (named ‘Nembo’). Later still a third (‘Ciclone’) was also formed, but never got past the setup stage. The original impetus for such units was the projected invasion of Malta, from which British forces were making communication with Italian forces in North Africa very difficult, but when this was cancelled, the paratroops were instead shipped to North Africa themselves, and served as elite infantry. The only drop of any size they ever carried out during World War II was on the Greek island of Kefallinia, in April 1941, but this met no resistance. So like so many paratroops, these men actually served as ground-based troops, and when Italy surrendered in 1943, some went on to fight for the king and the Allies, whilst others joined the RSI and fought in the north, mostly against their own partisans.

Italy’s paratroopers used much the same weaponry as the rest of the armed forces, but they received preferential treatment when the best were being issued. Submachine guns were never plentiful, but elite units like the paras got much of what was available, and half the poses in this set are armed with one. Two of them (bottom row) look to be firing them from the shoulder, while a third carries his as he throws a grenade, and the fourth has one slung on his back as he moves forward with an anti-tank weapon. Detail is unclear, but from the shape of them, three of the four look to be the M38A, which is a good choice. The fourth (first man in bottom row) looks to have a German machine-pistol, but impossible to say which one. The three men with the M38A also wear the ‘Samurai’ ammunition vest (either front only or front and back) which matches the weapon, and the fourth seems to have the slanted German ammunition pouches appropriate for his weapon too. For such an elite unit, this high proportion of submachine guns makes sense.

The first two poses are firing rifles, and again they are too vague to identify, but probably are meant to be the standard Mannlicher-Carcano M91 rifle. Both seem to have normal rifle ammunition pouches on the waistbelt, so are also appropriate for the subject. The last figure in row one holds a very short form of rifle – doubtless a carbine version of the M91, which would have been a very handy weapon if actually jumping from a plane – and the last man fires a light machine gun mounted on its bipod. From the basic shape this looks like a Breda M30 light machine gun, given that it has a fixed 20-round magazine on the right side, and while not a great weapon, it was widely used for lack of a better alternative. This just leaves one more weapon – the anti-tank weapon on the penultimate figure, which is clearly a German Panzerfaust. Since mass production of this weapon only began in October 1943, this must be a paratrooper serving the Italian Social Republic, which used large quantities of German weapons and equipment for its troops. All of these weapons are appropriate for these men, and we liked the proportions of each, considering there is only eight poses to work with.

Dedicated clothing was designed for paratroopers, but when serving as ordinary infantry, they sometimes wore ordinary uniforms, such as when in North Africa. However, while some figures here do wear apparently standard tunics, several wear a jump smock, which is very closely modelled on the equivalent German article. This looks to have been properly done here, as do the noticeably baggy paratroop trousers all of them wear. Two figures wear the large Italian beret, and the kneeling firing figure wears some sort of peaked cap, but the rest all have helmets. These vary somewhat in shape, and some look more like the German Fallschirmjäger model, but all seem reasonable. None are the common Italian model with the nose protector on the front, but this was not so commonplace as to be essential here. Short boots complete the wardrobe, and everything here looks authentic, with a nice level of variety.

Apart from the ammunition pouches already explored, the kit on these men consists of a water flask (which we thought rather small), a bread bag (haversack), and sometimes a bayonet or dagger (we can’t tell which). In addition, the prone machine gunner has the cleaning kit pouch on his belt, and the kneeling man has on his back the case with exchange barrels, spare parts and accessories for the same weapon. This would be a fairly normal level of kit when in action, so all correct here too.

Several times we have referred to items as ‘vague’ or ‘unclear’, and the sculpting here is really quite poor when it comes to detail. The general proportions are good, but a closer look at weapons and kit in particular reveal very little detail, and it is even hard to distinguish some items from clothing in places. The faces are adequate, but many of the hands are featureless and very poorly shaped, so it all looks rather messy up close. There is also a considerable amount of flash, as can be readily seen in our photos, and some of it is in really awkward places like on the faces and between limbs and the body. Some larger areas of unwanted plastic are also disfiguring these models, such as around the machine gun accessories box, so they need a great deal of work to make presentable. It all adds to a messy and unappealing look.

With their World War II sets, Mars have frequently delivered very dynamic poses, often hard ones to achieve using normal plastic injection technology. Those here are not amongst the more dynamic examples, as there are a lot of men more or less just standing, but all of the poses are appropriate and useful. There are a high proportion of men potentially firing their weapon here – all but the third figure in each row in fact – which some customers will like, and we don’t dislike it either, although having two similar poses (first two in bottom row) does feel like a bit of a waste.

Mars have done their homework with this set, delivering a good mix of weapons and clothing, all of which is suitable and does a good job of representing these men in just eight poses. The poses are fine if not particularly interesting for the most part, but the quality of the final sculpting and mould really let this set down. The 1/32nd scale version of this set looks magnificent, really beautiful, and was apparently 3-D printed. Whatever has happened between that and this 1/72nd scale set, much quality has been lost, which is a great pity for a well thought out group of figures such as these.