Introduction

This is my fifth look at some of the Canadian and Commonwealth troop figures produced by Ultracast. This time it is a single figure of a Canadian/British tank commander in Normandy 1944.

The Figure

The figure comes in a sealed plastic zip bag with a cardboard backing card. On the front of the card is the manufacturer's’ name and a description of the figures inside. On the inside of the card is a good quality colour picture to help assist in painting and assembly. On the back of the card are the makers’ details. This figure was sculpted by Kevin McLaughlin. The lower portion of the back of the insert contains small set of instructions detailing steps 1 through 4 of the simple assembly process together with a health and safety warning about working with resin.

review

Inside the bag is a single full figure, the tank commander. Consisting of five parts, the body is cast as one piece, with separate head, arms and hands which are holding a pair of binoculars.

Designed as a free standing figure, standing with legs apart and arms raised looking through binoculars. The detail on the overall body is very good, and the pose looks fairly natural.

He is wearing what appears to be 37/40 battle dress blouse with the pleated chest pockets and hidden buttons, battle dress trousers with anklets and ammo boots. The top right hand pleated trouser pocket looks a little low and too far round to the right.
The ammo boots and anklets have good detail. Around his waist is a 37 pattern belt with a side arm on the right hip and an ammo pouch on the left hand side of the belt. The brasses on both front and rear of the belt are well depicted.

His head has the face of a mature soldier with quite a stern/serious expression. The mouth is slightly open and on his head is a tankers beret with cap badge.

His arms are bent at the elbow with good cuff detail. There are suitable openings in the ends of the arms to accept the hands. These come as a separate item shown holding the binoculars, and care will be needed when removing them to avoid breaking the join in the binoculars. The hands are well sculpted, but the binoculars look a little small.

Overall, a really 1st class looking Tank Commander. Coming as a full figure he was designed for use outside the vehicle, but could easily find a home inside the cupola of any British Sherman.

Conclusion

Another excellent and very useful figure of a Canadian/Commonwealth Tanker. Excellent casting, with minimal clean up required he will populate any Sherman well.
Good detail means the figure should paint up very well indeed. I would like to have seen the binoculars as a separate item, allowing slightly greater flexibility.