King and Country Dispatches

Yes, it's that time of the month again so here I am posting about the latest figure releases and retirements from K+C

Heading for the hills this month are 10 Confederate infantrymen from their ACW range together with 10 dismounted dragoons and a mounted officer from their Age of Napoleon range, and that's it, so nothing there I'm interested in snapping up!

On to the new stuff. Due for release in September will be two character figures from ancient Chinese history, half a dozen Allied D-Day sets, including a strictly limited Eisenhower staff car set, a Luftwaffe Conference set, three WW1 German fighter planes together with standing figures of their respective pilot Aces and finally, but by no means least, nine more releases for their Berlin '38 range

The Strictly Limited Eisenhower staff car set, limited to 750 pieces worldwide

The Luftwaffe Conference set

As with so many of the sets produced by K+C, the Luftwaffe Conference set pictured above was inspired by a real life meeting that took place between members of the Luftwaffe top brass:

At the height of the Battle of Britain in 1940 Chief of the Luftwaffe, Hermann Goering was becoming increasingly impatient with his air force's inability to decisively crush the Royal Air Force. At the same time the Luftwaffe was beginning to lose a growing number of aircraft to the British. He decided to pay a visit to his front line squadrons in France to find out for himself what was going wrong. 
Traveling on his private train the Reichsmarshall summoned Adolf Galland and Werner Molders, two of his top fighter aces, to meet him and discuss the worsening situation.
 At first he berated the two leading pilots and accused them (and their fighter units) of not doing enough to protect his bombers. After a while, his mood softened and he asked them both what they needed to succeed.
 Galland looked at Molders... Molders look to Galland... and finally Galland said, " A squadron of Spitfires!"
 The Reichsmarshall was not amused. This little vignette set portrays the historic meeting

Continuing with the air force theme for a moment, K+C have announced the release of three German bi-planes from the First World War, complete with their Air Ace pilots in the form of full standing figures. From the photographs they look simply gorgeous and certainly good enough to give the John Jenkins series a run for its money

German flying ace Werner Voss flew one of the most colourful and brightly marked planes of any of the leading pilots. The swastika on the fuselage of his Albatros was originally intended as a good luck symbol!

This particular Albatros was flown by a young Hermann Goering, the future Luftwaffe Chief, before he took over command of the "Flying Circus" after the death of the Red Baron

Although Manfred Von Richtofen is usually pictured in his famous all-red Fokker Tri-plane he originally achieved fame flying an all-red Albatros... and that's what he is pictured with here

To be honest, I'm seriously tempted to invest in the Goering Albatros. As the caption states, it shows him in his youth as a combatant in the Great War and would be a natural extension of my Third Reich collection. What I will certainly be investing in, at some point in the future, are the following nine Berlin '38 sets. Scrumptious!

A new updated version of a now retired figure... carrying the " blood" banner

Marching SS banner bearer

This particular SS officer is wearing the dress "aiguillettes and gauntlets" of the 1st company of the "SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler" regiment

An SS officer standing at ease

Keeping it in the family! An SS officer and his Hitler-Jugend son

The original single lamp post sets were extremely popular, and I've seen them sell for very good money on ebay! I think these will go down equally well. I certainly like the idea of them being reversible and they will make a fabulous addition to any parade or Berlin street scene dio

In 1938, with the war clouds gathering, Himmler decided that he and his men should also have field grey uniforms, just like the German Army, in addition to their all too familiar black. So, here we have Heinrich and Sepp in their FG outfits to add to my growing collection of Himmler and Dietrich figures!

Finally for this post, we all love a vehicle don't we? I know I do, and I simply love this little beauty. I don't think I'll be standing the commander on top, however. He looks like he's about to fall off!

When the Leibstandarte was incorporated into the Waffen SS this was one of the first armoured vehicles they were equipped with, the Panzerjager 1. The set includes the vehicle commander

That just about wraps it up for this month, save to say further images and information are available from the K+C web site

Happy hunting!