Introduction

Hunor produce a variety of 1/72 resin vehicle kits, including over a dozen armoured fighting vehicles. To accompany them there is quite a sizeable range of figures, now numbering some thirty sets, covering tank crew, combat infantry, Gendarmerie, and both peasant and urban civilians, and all of them addressing Hunor’s specialist subject, Hungary in WW2.

Here we take a quick look at one of the figure sets, billed as “Hungarian Tank Raiders” – though I suppose that should perhaps be “Riders”, as these combat figures are all posed to ride on vehicles.

Contents

Packed in a polythene bag stapled to a simple card, the five figures are cast in dark yellow resin, mostly attached to smallish blocks.

Taking the figures in the order shown in the photos (a pair of views of each):

• Figure 1: seated leaning forward, bare headed, gesturing / talking. Wears M1939 tunic and baggy trousers with canvas anklets and short boots. Carries an MP38 magazine pouch and some other case on his belt.
  
• Figure 2: sitting upright, talking and pointing. Wears a German steel helmet, same tunic with long loose bottomed trousers; belt carries MP38 magazine pouches and map case.
  
• Figure 3: sitting leaning back with one leg up. Wears the peakless Hungarian field cap (“Bocskai”) which sits low over his eyes, the same M1939 tunic with trousers that appear to be rolled up at the bottoms. Carries several rifle ammunition pouches at his belt.
  
• Figure 4: a half figure for sitting in a hatch. Wears tank crew / assault artillery grey-blue uniform similar to the German short-jacketed Panzer crew uniform, so is possibly intended to be the commander of a self-propelled gun. Wears the peakless field cap and carries a pistol holster.
  
• Figure 5: seated upright, holding on. Wears the M1939 tunic coupled with trousers tucked into German style marching boots (or possibly strapped engineer boots), with the field cap and MP38 magazine pouches.

Review

The later group photos show the figures as they came out of the bag, with all the mould block and flash intact, while the individual photos were taken following a fairly basic clean up: removing the mould blocks, flash and most of the mould seams, and then given a few coats of white primer. I think it’s fair to say that before getting down to some proper painting, a more detailed cleaning would be wise, as the photos show a few fairly rough but delicate areas needing quite careful attention, particularly around the hands. In terms of size they seem right for 1/72 scale, coming out at about 24 or 25mm = 1728mm or 5’6” to 5’9”.

The detail is good enough to give a decent representation of the uniform and equipment details, and enough to distinguish them from their German allies, so that they do have an interesting look of their own. The poses of the four full figures are pretty nice, with them all holding on to the vehicle, and all looking fully engaged and perhaps talking to each other, which makes them look human.

The bareheaded figure and the one wearing the German helmet are in my view the nicest two, having some good character to the faces and perhaps the most natural poses. I’m not too sure why one figure seems to have his cap pulled down so very low over his eyes, it looks bit odd, and you’ll notice too that I didn’t remove him from the block as his right leg is rather firmly attached; removing it without damage may take some careful work. I think the tank commander half-figure is perhaps the weakest piece, with his anatomy looking a little odd and his torso appearing generally a bit small compared to the other figures.

According to my references, the uniforms seem accurate enough, and it is a nice touch that there is a good deal of variety among them, providing more interest than would be the case if they were all dressed in identical kit. Considering that they are mostly carrying MP38 or rifle ammunition pouches, the lack of any weapons is something of an omission, especially considering they are supposed to be riding on tanks, that is, engaged in a combat role.

Conclusion

So, a fair set of figures in terms of sculpt and detail, that could also have done with some weapons to accompany them into battle. With careful clean up and painting, they would definitely add interest to a Hungarian armoured vehicle scene, and of course could easily be used with something German as well, such as a STuG III.

In Europe it seems that Hunor’s range is readily available via Tracks-n-Troops.

References

Nigel Thomas and Laszlo Pal Szabo The Royal Hungarian Army in World War II (Osprey 2008)