The L1A1 SLR in 1/6 scale

Back in the days of Action Man and Tommy Gun the standard British rifle was a modified version of the Belgian FN FAL, a 7.62mm automatic rifle with a 20 round magazine.  It was a long weapon with a wooden butt and fore grip, a flip-up rear sight and a folding carry handle.  When the Ministry of Defence got them they made numerous small changes to the FN, including removing the ability to be fully automatic, rendering it semi-automatic.  The resultant weapon was known as the L1A1 Self Loading Rifle... or just SLR as it became known.
By the 1970s the wooden parts had been replaced by pebble-texture plastic and the carry handle grip had been redesigned.

The rifle soldiered on until the end of the Cold War, some being seen in Kuwait during the first Gulf War in 1991.  This elegant rifle has now passed into history, like the era in which it was used.  However, it's 1/6 scale offspring are still around.

The first SLR in the scale was the one supplied in several Tommy Gunn sets, which was later copied and used for Action Man's British soldiers.  While it looked like the ubiquitous rifle, it was of course simplified, the carry handle was moulded closed down and the barrel was shorter and chunkier than it should be.

The rifle was moulded in brown as a single piece of plastic and painted with black details.  A green elastic sling completed the item.  Below is an Action Man version, but the Tommy Gunn one was identical.

As the Action Man line carried on into the '70s and '80s the SLR went with him, carried proudly by soldiers in what could only be called military-looking uniforms.  By the end of the run the toy had two large lugs fitted so that the holes in a piece of rubber could represent the sling.
And that was that.

In the 1990s 21st Century Toys started to produce 1/6 military figures, almost all of which were US subjects.  By today's standards they were crude and clunky, using plastic and elastic to represent webbing and pouches.  They were followed by the Chinese model company Dragon Models, who brought out a range of figures far superior in both the figure itself and the clothing/equipment.  As the range increased (with every variation of WW2 German soldiers) they expanded into modern figures... and eventually to the British.

In 2002 they produced a Falklands War paratrooper armed with a vast amount of equipment... and an SLR!
This was a thing of beauty... folding carrying handle, removable magazine, web sling with adjusters, and a thin barrel of the correct length.  Details were spot on and it looked right.
At the same time a UK based one sixth scale forum produced a limited edition British soldier from the Falklands War, again armed with an SLR.  I can't remember if this was metal or resin.
A third source of SLRs came charging in from the Far East, this time a Hong Kong based company called RMC, or Realistic Models Corp.  They offered a set of TWO SLRs, one later all-plastic version, and the earlier wooden-parts version.  These topped the Dragon one for detail and accuracy, and are now the most sought-after SLRs on the collector's market.  They came with several magazines, different sights and scopes, and two bayonets with scabbards.
Barrack Sergeant, also in Hong Kong offered the same RMC SLRs with their Falklands sets.  (I'm lucky enough to have two of the Dragon versions and one RMC one... I lost the other somehow.)

In 2012 Dragon brought out a new selection of Falklands War figures, only one being armed with an SLR (the others having the Stirling SMG, GPMG, US M16 rifle and a sniper rifle), which is also now hard to find at a reasonable price.

Back to the very first one and it seems that Tommy Gunn's original weapon is still around.  Furuta of Japan has produced a series of 1/6 scale weapons in blind boxes.  One of these is an FN FAL.
This, while not an exact replica of the Tommy Gunn and Action Man version was clearly based on it, and has itself been copied and sold in some spy and agent sets from China.

The Furuta version differs from the older one in having an even shorter barrel (cast in metal), a SECOND carry handle in addition to the folded one, a removable magazine and a sticking-up rear sight.  The trigger guard is thinner, but the grip is the same, as are the butt and fore grip.  It even omits the ejector port.  Below is the Furuta with the Action Man version for comparison.

And this is the gun taken apart (second grip broke off... oops)

Sideshow released a GI Movie figure armed with what appeared to be either an SLR or FN FAL, modified with a shorter barrel and strangely shaped butt... this photo from eBay shows the weapon.

Finally I thought I would show a proper SLR with the Furuta and Action Man versions... just to show how things have changed over the decades... and how the demands for accuracy have changed.  The Blank Firing Attachment on my RMC SLR is scratchbuilt, and I am in the process of repainting the wooden parts for more realism.

Parachute Regiment, 1982, Port Stanley

This figure is of a member of 2 Para in the aftermath of the Battle for Port Stanley, capital of the Falkland Islands, 1982.  The Argentine forces have surrendered and the British Army and Royal Marines take control... and many POWs.

The figure is made up from the following parts:

Body: Hot Toys narrow shoulder
Head: Dragon in Dreams "Michael Taylor" (WW2 Para)
Hands: Soldier Story

Beret: Armoury repainted
Shirt: Dragon
Pullover: Barrack Sergeant
Trousers: Barrack Sergeant
Boots: New Line Miniatures
Puttees: BBi
Face Veil:  BBi
Parka: Dragon "Graeme"
1958 Webbing: Barrack Sergeant
SLR: Dragon "Graeme" with canvas wrapping added.

The beret needs to be replaced by a one-piece version of the right size - small!  Other than that, he is complete.
The Argentine POW is made up from spares and a desk top flag.  Sandbags are from cross stitch material dyed with coffee and filled with real sand.

This was my attempt to improve on the "Graeme" figure produced by Dragon in 2002.  They issued some more figures in 2012, but the clothing is thinner and looks cheap.


UPDATE
I've added a home made beret to the Para now (now being 25 October 2014)... still need to blacken the badge but I think the effect of the smaller beret works now...

A Start

For quite a few years I collected and made my own kitbashed 1/6 scale British figures - mostly WW2 Paras.  The amount I spent on them (16 in total) was and still is rather scary.  As prices went up so my interest in the hobby waned... only really resurrecting itself as I became interested in the Cold War - that period in Earth's history from 1945 until the fall of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991, building 1/35 models of the period.
Unfortunately it's one of those situations were there are too many subjects to model and not enough space, so I decided to specialise in one area - figures.  Most of the figures from this period are either based on troops serving in Northern Ireland during the troubles, or the Falklands... and being on the small side would be rather a small collection.
So I returned to the world of 1/6 scale poseable figures... or as deriders would call them: Action Man.

In fact a closer comparison would be the short lived Tommy Gunn soldier figure by Pedigree (1966 to 1968), which had a body very similar to Palitoy's Action Man (1966 to 1985), but was apparently slightly better.  There was also another difference between the two... when Tommy Gunn was on sale Action Man was still copying the releases of his US cousin GI Joe, and as such most of his kit in the '60s had an American flavour... not so with Tommy Gunn.  Tommy was a British soldier through and through - he wore a heavily simplified version of the 1960 combat suit, Mk4 helmet and '58 webbing, while he carried either the L1A1 SLR or the Stirling SMG (both of these later appeared in Action Man sets looking amazingly similar).  Tommy had lace up boots, elasticated gaiters and a whole plethora of kit modelled on the then-current British Army issue.  There is talk that Pedigree were given access to actual kit to allow them to model some of the items, such as a very good (for the time) No 4C Mine Detector.

These three photos show the Tommy Gunn Equipment Manual (basically a small catalogue), the second shows the basic boxed figure as a painting... and the third shows what the stuff was actually like.  Pockets were just stitched outlines, but the rest was pretty decent.

This Vectis photo shows how the figure would look in his box...

Sadly I don't yet have an original Tommy Gunn to put inside the clothing yet... they are quite hard to find at decent prices.  It would be more of a curio than a serious part of my collection, but it would be nice to have as it shows where things started as far as modern 1/6 British soldiers go.

After two years of defending bedrooms from the Red Menace Tommy retired, replaced briefly by Captain Scarlet, and later by a range of bizarre spacemen and aliens.

Where does this have anything to do with this blog's subject matter?  Well, it got me thinking about trying a modern collection of British soldiers representing those from the Cold War period.  Of course there would be a Falklands War figure... that goes without saying, and luckily I had one that I had kitbashed many moons ago, and still stands up to scrutiny now.
It's not an easy genre to model... there is very little clothing specifically from the period, although some later garments can be adapted.  Equipment, such as the 1958 pattern webbing is available on the spares market, as are Stirling SMGs, the SLR is very rare, and the GPMG even more so.  A late model Bren can be adapted to represent the L4 variant adapted for 7.62 rounds.
Of course the 1950s can be represented with minor alterations to the classic battledress used in WW2, combining it with '37 or '44 webbing (the latter would need to be built from scratch as no figure has been released with it), Mk3 helmet and the No 4 Lee Enfield (SLR came in towards the end of the '50s).

The 1960s is a problematic period as there are no representations of the 1960 pattern combat suit, apart from the trousers from a Falklands Para sniper uniform accessory set.  The jacket CAN be represented by some alterations to the US M1951 combat jacket, which is very close... mostly the pockets.

This blog will feature my attempts to represent soldiers and specialists of the British Army from the Cold War.  Because of the subject matter assembling figures will take time, so updates may not be as regular as some other figure blogs.

Apologies for the long rambling post, but I just wanted any readers to understand where I'm coming from with this blog.  Hopefully some people will find it interesting.