"In 1939 Poland was embarked on a program of mechanisation for the army, but it still had a long way to go when Germany and the Soviet Union invaded and occupied the country. In particular, most of the artillery was still horse-drawn, but the main exception to that rule were the anti-aircraft batteries, which were mechanised, and brings us to the title of this set. In 1939 ‘motorised' artillery generally meant anti-aircraft guns, and this was an area where Poland had considerable strengths. Their main armament was the excellent Bofors 40mm gun, a weapon developed in Sweden but produced locally in Poland and used by a great many armies both at the time and long since. Also appearing was another good weapon, the 75mm Polish wz.36, but few of these were in service when war broke out. The Poles gave a good account of themselves in downing German planes, which surprised the Germans, but this was not sufficient to influence the final outcome of the battle.
There are no guns as part of this set – those are available elsewhere in the range – but what you do get is 16 figures in seven poses, although two of the standing poses are just the same figure but carrying different ammunition. The two seated figures are presumably meant to be the trainer and pointer for the Bofors, and we have a double-dose of officers holding binoculars and pointing. The kneeling figure and the last man, who sits on the ground, are probably for other, smaller calibre weapons. A big issue with the Bofors was keeping it supplied with rounds, which were in four-round clips that needed constant feeding into the weapon since it could fire over 100 in a minute. Ideally then there could have been more men handling such clips, but instead the poses cover more of a range of weapons, and so should prove to be more widely useful to customers. Like many such sets, the crew is something of a skeleton affair rather than a complete complement, but all the poses are well-chosen and helped by the few separate arms, which help to maximise the flexibility of what is on offer…."
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Armand
