Accurate-Armour offer several modern British soldiers.

I’m reasonably sure that Sid Horton did a NI British squaddie in his Chota Sahib range. However, I think the range is long out of production, although I’m sure some modellers have examples in the stash.

There is also the Tamiya stretcher party, although you’d need to do some reanimating to get to useful poses for your purposes.

Yes they do but I suspect not for the time frame Thomas is pursuing...

Thomas,
It was interesting to read your question.
As mentioned in the various responses, figures of British soldiers with SLRs are very difficult to find. I am actually a small-scale modeller (1/76 and 1/72), and have a similar problem with sourcing suitable figures of this type. I have created a number of Northern Ireland dioramas, but most have been from a later period with soldiers carrying the SA80s. When I really needed to include the SLR, the only option was to modify figures from the Revell (ex-Matchbox) set ... not ideal, but the best I could do.
In short, we really need something specific to this period (both small and large scale) ... probably a long time before we see anything though.

Paul

Black Dog makes a set of British Faulklands Soldiers that may be helpful. They would need some new heads and other mods, but could be a good starting point.

Black Dog makes a set of British Faulklands Soldiers that may be helpful. They would need some new heads and other mods, but could be a good starting point.

I don't know what kind of diorama you have planned and this may not be much help, but have you considered a larger scale? I worked for Charles C Stadden Studios in the '70s and they did a very large range of 80mm statuettes of Northern Ireland figures. The range covered virtually all regiments and corps and extended up to about 50 figures, including an MP with Sterling. They are very well and accurately sculpted (there was a rumour in the factory that one of the figures was based on his son, who was in the Scots Guards). The idea behind them was that they were awarded to soldiers who did something that didn't warrant a medal or a MID, e.g something that fostered good public relations. The drawback is that they are polished pewter normally, but they did release the base model as a white metal kit. The figure has full IS gear, flak jacket, respirator etc, is armed with the SLR (some of the later figures also have the SUIT on the rifle. I think they also later after I left did a EOD figure. If you search for Stadden figures on ebay they should come up eventually.
If you do wish to stick with 1/35th, I'm not sure some of the other comments are that helpful. I recall most of the above figures wear the short puttees rather than gaiters, this was the norm then and what I was issued with (still got gaiters in the cadets though). Of course WW2 figures will be wearing battledress, which went out in the '60s, perversely you may be better starting with late war German or American figures, which at least give you a combat jacket. By the end of the '70s I seem to remember IS boots being issued, these were a laced high boot, similar to the American issue, but in black. Some of the Stadden figures wear these.

Sorry Brian, I could have phrased that better! But I think we can agree that British figures of this type and period are unobtainium in 1/35th, which is a bit of a travesty really, seeing "The Troubles" lasted nearly 30 years and just about every unit in the British Army served there (except the Royal Irish Rangers for obvious reasons). Apart from the Accurate Armour resin kits and the Dragon Black Box Saladin, there are no vehicles either. Which is why I wondered if Thomas would consider a different scale. I was going to add some links to figures I've found on Ebay, then double checked the prices -eeK!

Steve,

I shouldn't present as so thin-skinned!

I agree entirely about the lack of British NI figures, but really (as a Cold war modeller) there are hardly any decent injected figures of most nations representing either warfighting (exercises in my case) or what I call "Hanging around the Tank Park" figures, which I find generally the more useful type when augmenting models. It's all very frustrating and there is no option other than to convert or modify to the best of ones skill-set, and it's nearly always a lot of work. However, as with most things, one does get better the more one does it; my first timid steps of say, converting a tunic to a parka wasn't that difficult, and as we speak I'm attempting a figure conversion from the ancient Taniya Panzer grenadiers set, but the sanding, trimming and then the Milliputing can bear down a bit, still, that's sometimes the nature of the hobby.

As I've indicated above, Hornet Head sets are invaluable and almost paint themselves; weapon sets - for the Cold war period - are just about widely available with firms like Italeri re-releasing some of their stuff.

For vehicle crews then Valkyrie fill a void up to a point but are quite expensive.

In summary, I think you'll agree, there's not much choice other than to reach for the sanding sticks and Milliput!

Brian