HaT 1/72 WWI German Heavy Weapons By Grzegorz Mazurowski

In the beginning of the WWI German infantry had rather basic armament: Mauser rifles and some 08 Maxim-system Heavy Machine guns called "Spandau". Later in the war many other, interesting weapons were developed for infantry and supplied to the frontline units. That stuff included various machine guns lighter than Spandau 08, grenade launchers (called "Granatenwerfer"), trench mortars ("Minenwerfer"), flamethrowers, anti-tank rifles and even first machine pistols, especially suitable for short-range trench warfare on the Western Front.

Figures

HaT again provided us with pretty unusual set of figures: German WWI Heavy Weapons - set of various very interesting trench-warfare hardware with crews: gunners, loaders, aimers and commanders. Set contains four identical light grey sprues, each with 25 elements including 18 figures of soldiers, grenade launcher, rifle-grenade launcher, two parts of 7,6 cm trench mortar, two parts of 08 Maxim HMG and a dog! Particular weapons are identified on the pictures printed on the back side of the box (see the scan!). Figures are nicely moulded in pretty unusual, new type of plastic: rather soft one, but you can glue it with normal glue used for "hard plastic" (Polystyrene). That's super cool thing, as it not only makes assembly of the weapons very easy, but also allows for various conversions and modifications of figures and weapons.

Figures look very good, all are in realistic poses good for both wargamers and diorama builders, and dimensionally are very similar to popular set of Revell WWI German Infantry (only the helmets in HaT set are slightly bigger than Revell ones).

The only complaint I have are for some of the weapons and some helmets - in my opinion accuracy and detailing could sometimes be better. Especially I do not like Maxim MGs, both 08 HMG and 08/15 LMG. heavy Maxim has too delicate-looking "four-pod" (compare with "stronger" Revell one, which is very good in my opinion) and 08/15 LMG doesn't have that characteristic "step" on the top of the gun, feature known especially well to the airplane model builders (all that Fokkers and Albatroses were armed with 08/15 MGs). Also not all helmets identical - Hat, isn't possible to make one correct master of the helmet, then cast enough copies in resin and use identical helmets on masters for all of the figures? But don't worry too much! These details are very small, and only "hawkeyes" will notice them, and if you really care for details of the MGs, you can use PE details for German HMGs from airplane sets (but leave that perforated barrel coolers on the fret, infantry MG was water cooled, so not perforated).

Conclusion

Not a competitor, but an excellent and interesting addition to the Revell WWI German Infantry set. While Revell makes "normal" infantry with Mausers and HMGs, this HaT set is full of various heavier and lighter weapons, which adds very cool flavour to each diorama or war game played with this figures.

Thanks to HaT for the review sample!