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I’m a 60-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.
Showing posts with label Higgins Boat. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Higgins Boat. Show all posts

Thursday 3 June 2021

Giant Landing Craft, Crew and WWII AFV's

Well, in the end there had to be a 'Yes!' to the "But is it Giant?" question, and this is the first of what will be many, as we are looking at 100% Giant output, which, as far as I know, has never been associated with non-Giant production or sets.

.50cal Browning Heavy-Machinegun; Airfix M40/43 SPG; But Is It Giant?; Carlos Fandango; Esci M12; Giant Crew; Giant Landing Craft; Giant Or What?; Giant Plastic Corp.; Giant WWII AFV's; Giant's Troop Carrier; HäT's Archive; Half-Track; Higgin's Boat; Jeep; Jeep And Trailer; M12 SPG Cradle; M44/M53/55; M46/47 Hull; Marx Play-Set; Monogram; Pyro; Quad-AA Version; Ray-Gun; Roco-Minitanks Flak-38); Sherman Turret; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Space-Tank; SPG/Howitzer; Towed Gun; Twin-Mg Mount;
The Giant landing craft, one of their bigger pieces and therefore - like the Viking longship or knight's catapults - quite rare as it only featured in a few of the larger carded sets.

.50cal Browning Heavy-Machinegun; Airfix M40/43 SPG; But Is It Giant?; Carlos Fandango; Esci M12; Giant Crew; Giant Landing Craft; Giant Or What?; Giant Plastic Corp.; Giant WWII AFV's; Giant's Troop Carrier; HäT's Archive; Half-Track; Higgin's Boat; Jeep; Jeep And Trailer; M12 SPG Cradle; M44/M53/55; M46/47 Hull; Marx Play-Set; Monogram; Pyro; Quad-AA Version; Ray-Gun; Roco-Minitanks Flak-38); Sherman Turret; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Space-Tank; SPG/Howitzer; Towed Gun; Twin-Mg Mount;
The photographic equivalent of a multiple-view drawing! I think it's a loose rendition of a Higgin's Boat, although Giant's is made to take armour while a true Higgin's was a troop carrier with provision for a jeep and trailer.

The clip-in front ramp/door is joined by two slip-on pom-pom guns based loosely on a .50cal Browning heavy-machinegun. Three crew are provided; the same pose, in two iterations and they slip into the three 'pulpits' of the two gun stations and a wheelhouse.

.50cal Browning Heavy-Machinegun; Airfix M40/43 SPG; But Is It Giant?; Carlos Fandango; Esci M12; Giant Crew; Giant Landing Craft; Giant Or What?; Giant Plastic Corp.; Giant WWII AFV's; Giant's Troop Carrier; HäT's Archive; Half-Track; Higgin's Boat; Jeep; Jeep And Trailer; M12 SPG Cradle; M44/M53/55; M46/47 Hull; Marx Play-Set; Monogram; Pyro; Quad-AA Version; Ray-Gun; Roco-Minitanks Flak-38); Sherman Turret; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Space-Tank; SPG/Howitzer; Towed Gun; Twin-Mg Mount;
The wheelhouse guy ('helmsman') gets a larger base and plug-in ships-wheel on a long steering-rod, and all three are just wedged into the pulpits resting against the inner/lower-ledges visible in the left hand shot.

.50cal Browning Heavy-Machinegun; Airfix M40/43 SPG; But Is It Giant?; Carlos Fandango; Esci M12; Giant Crew; Giant Landing Craft; Giant Or What?; Giant Plastic Corp.; Giant WWII AFV's; Giant's Troop Carrier; HäT's Archive; Half-Track; Higgin's Boat; Jeep; Jeep And Trailer; M12 SPG Cradle; M44/M53/55; M46/47 Hull; Marx Play-Set; Monogram; Pyro; Quad-AA Version; Ray-Gun; Roco-Minitanks Flak-38); Sherman Turret; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Space-Tank; SPG/Howitzer; Towed Gun; Twin-Mg Mount;
The figures don't sit easily in their positions, and at some point Giant redesigned the two gunners, taking their 'penny' bases (left figure) away and reducing them to small buttons (right figure) which allowed them to drop in with ease. The smaller version seems to be commoner, but that maybe only in my collection and is not to be taken as empirical of anything.

.50cal Browning Heavy-Machinegun; Airfix M40/43 SPG; But Is It Giant?; Carlos Fandango; Esci M12; Giant Crew; Giant Landing Craft; Giant Or What?; Giant Plastic Corp.; Giant WWII AFV's; Giant's Troop Carrier; HäT's Archive; Half-Track; Higgin's Boat; Jeep; Jeep And Trailer; M12 SPG Cradle; M44/M53/55; M46/47 Hull; Marx Play-Set; Monogram; Pyro; Quad-AA Version; Ray-Gun; Roco-Minitanks Flak-38); Sherman Turret; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Space-Tank; SPG/Howitzer; Towed Gun; Twin-Mg Mount;
The AFV's, there are four main bodies for the tank (a loose M46/47 hull), of which I don't yet have the quad-AA version (guns based on Roco-Minitanks Flak-38), but from the left we have a vague Sherman turret with 'ray-gun' (space-tank, yeay!), a shorter barreled turret which seems to be based on the M44/M53/55 family of SPG/Howitzer's superstructures and, finally, a crude copy of Airfix's M40/43 SPG with M12 cradle?

There is also a jeep, usually fitted with a trailer and a sub-scale half-track with twin-mg mount, usually fitted with a gun, which is a copy of Marx's standard play-set piece.

.50cal Browning Heavy-Machinegun; Airfix M40/43 SPG; But Is It Giant?; Carlos Fandango; Esci M12; Giant Crew; Giant Landing Craft; Giant Or What?; Giant Plastic Corp.; Giant WWII AFV's; Giant's Troop Carrier; HäT's Archive; Half-Track; Higgin's Boat; Jeep; Jeep And Trailer; M12 SPG Cradle; M44/M53/55; M46/47 Hull; Marx Play-Set; Monogram; Pyro; Quad-AA Version; Ray-Gun; Roco-Minitanks Flak-38); Sherman Turret; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Space-Tank; SPG/Howitzer; Towed Gun; Twin-Mg Mount;
The hull and running gear are the same on all four vehicles and consist of five Christie-style full height road wheels and nothing resembling a drive sprocket. Plastic colour can vary from yellow-olive to a dark olive-drab. Warping of the hull (probably at the factory, rather than through age), in a banana-fashion, tends to leave the middle three wheels proud of the road!

.50cal Browning Heavy-Machinegun; Airfix M40/43 SPG; But Is It Giant?; Carlos Fandango; Esci M12; Giant Crew; Giant Landing Craft; Giant Or What?; Giant Plastic Corp.; Giant WWII AFV's; Giant's Troop Carrier; HäT's Archive; Half-Track; Higgin's Boat; Jeep; Jeep And Trailer; M12 SPG Cradle; M44/M53/55; M46/47 Hull; Marx Play-Set; Monogram; Pyro; Quad-AA Version; Ray-Gun; Roco-Minitanks Flak-38); Sherman Turret; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Space-Tank; SPG/Howitzer; Towed Gun; Twin-Mg Mount;
The 'ray-gun' of the Sherman-alike is usually found bent, again this seems to be factory shrinkage, rather than any later deformation through age, and while it's never severe, it does tend to droop slightly, which lead to a redesign with a heaver barrel which is also slightly shorter, but stays straight! It (right hand of the close-up) retains some of the features of the ray-gun look! Unlike the small-based gunners, this variety seems less common, but again; from a sample of a dozen or so tracked AFV's, it's not to be seen as empirical of anything.

.50cal Browning Heavy-Machinegun; Airfix M40/43 SPG; But Is It Giant?; Carlos Fandango; Esci M12; Giant Crew; Giant Landing Craft; Giant Or What?; Giant Plastic Corp.; Giant WWII AFV's; Giant's Troop Carrier; HäT's Archive; Half-Track; Higgin's Boat; Jeep; Jeep And Trailer; M12 SPG Cradle; M44/M53/55; M46/47 Hull; Marx Play-Set; Monogram; Pyro; Quad-AA Version; Ray-Gun; Roco-Minitanks Flak-38); Sherman Turret; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Space-Tank; SPG/Howitzer; Towed Gun; Twin-Mg Mount;
As I say, I don't have the quadruple Flak version, but it can been seen in Arlin's excellent article here at HäT's archive.

The generic US SPG I do have (above) seems to have a cradle similar to the ones we looked at here (not Giant) and both could be taken from the Esci M12, but I don't think it's old enough, so they may be harking back to an earlier kit from Monogram, Pyro or Renwall in a larger scale?

You can see it also traverses both from the gun and the fighting-compartment in a very un-SPG sort of way!

.50cal Browning Heavy-Machinegun; Airfix M40/43 SPG; But Is It Giant?; Carlos Fandango; Esci M12; Giant Crew; Giant Landing Craft; Giant Or What?; Giant Plastic Corp.; Giant WWII AFV's; Giant's Troop Carrier; HäT's Archive; Half-Track; Higgin's Boat; Jeep; Jeep And Trailer; M12 SPG Cradle; M44/M53/55; M46/47 Hull; Marx Play-Set; Monogram; Pyro; Quad-AA Version; Ray-Gun; Roco-Minitanks Flak-38); Sherman Turret; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Space-Tank; SPG/Howitzer; Towed Gun; Twin-Mg Mount;
Although the jeep usually gets a trailer and the half-track a small field-gun, they can both tow each-other's preferred hitch. And the sublime sculpting of the jeep (by far the best item in the range and one of the better 'HO/OO' jeeps overall) is offset by the half-track being really quite comical, short, inaccurate, sub-scale and equipped with twin ray-guns and Marx's 'ladder-racks'!

But then they were only pocket-money rack-toys!

.50cal Browning Heavy-Machinegun; Airfix M40/43 SPG; But Is It Giant?; Carlos Fandango; Esci M12; Giant Crew; Giant Landing Craft; Giant Or What?; Giant Plastic Corp.; Giant WWII AFV's; Giant's Troop Carrier; HäT's Archive; Half-Track; Higgin's Boat; Jeep; Jeep And Trailer; M12 SPG Cradle; M44/M53/55; M46/47 Hull; Marx Play-Set; Monogram; Pyro; Quad-AA Version; Ray-Gun; Roco-Minitanks Flak-38); Sherman Turret; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Space-Tank; SPG/Howitzer; Towed Gun; Twin-Mg Mount;

Another Japanese-held Pacific island falls back into US hands due to the timely intervention of the Giant Plastic Corp's 'Carlos Fandango' extra-wide Higgins Boat and ray-gun space-tank - those Jap-chaps never stood a chance!

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But is it Giant?

Yes, all of it!