"Searching for Gun Bunnies" Topic

It has to be on their site somewhere, but I'm not finding it. Does anyone know how many miniatures I can expect in a GHQ "Artillery Crew" blister pack? Does anyone else sell crew separately in 6mm? (Large stack of used WWII guns. No crew whatever. Thanks.)

According to my notes they come in packs of 50+ figures.

I think each sprue has 7-8 figures on it and there are 6 to 7 sprues in a pack.

Two packs does me then. Thank you both!

Someone should tell that fella to lower the ear-trumpets before the gun goes off.

Hi Robert

I just checked the GHQ site under Artillery Crewmen. Each pack of the WWII artillery crewmen come with 8 sprues and 7 figures on a sprue.

The only other person who does artillery crews is H&R. The old style figures had 5 kneeling figures and 5 standing figures except the Germans who had 6 standing figures. The new style figures have 3 kneeling figures and 4 standing figures.

Worth mentioning is that the American, Soviet and Italian WW2 GHQ Artillery Crews are all the same castings. They decided that the helmets were similar enough, and as there is very little other equipment in the hands of the artillery crews they label the castings as available for 3 armies.

Note that I do not criticize GHQ for this choice. For my purposes it works out just fine. In fact I use these figures for 5 armies -- American, Soviet, Italian, French and Romanian.

I also have experience with the H&R artillery crews. In the H&R kit the American and Soviet crew figures are different castings -- some portion of the the Soviet artillery crews have the stereotypical Red Army rolled greatcoat work diagonally across their chests/backs.

And H&R offers Italian artillery crews in their newer castings. If you are not aware, throughout the 1990s H&R produced a wide range of individual infantry castings that, while quite good for their time, do not match the visual detailing of later products such as the GHQ individual infantry. Also, being 1/300 they are marginally smaller than GHQ's 1/285. But in the 2010s H&R began selectively introducing newer castings, which are genuinely competitive with GHQ on detail and quality. Their Italian line has these newer castings available for gun crews.

I have always had a portion of my forces in H&R, even as I built out several armies using GHQ. For artillery crews I have freely mixed older H&R with GHQ not only in my forces but on the same stands. Please don't think this is because I don't think my models are worth the attention. I very much like to do my best on my armies. But I like the variety in poses I get, and I don't object to the difference in scale as I find individuals in the real world differ in height more than the figures at 2 scales do on my stands.

Here is a picture of different figures for a size and casting quality comparison. You see (L-R) a GHQ Romanian Individual Infantry figure, a GHQ American Artillery Crew figure, a GHQ US Armored Infantry (ie: intended to be mounted in the halftracks) figure, and an older casting H&R American Artillery Crew figure.

So here are some examples of my use of artillery crew figures for consideration …

Two batteries of US Army 105mm Howitzers. Note that these stands mix GHQ and H&R figures. Also the battery fire control / command stands also are done with a mix of artillery crew figures. FYI they are all mounted on US Pennies.

Here is a closer look at one of the batteries. I keep the crews separate from the guns for two reasons: 1) I can make fewer crew stands serve a wider variety of guns, and 2) the rules I prefer (Mein Panzer from ODGW) adjudicate hits on the crews separately from hits on the guns.

I also use the same crew figures mounted in my SP Artillery units. Here is one of my M7 Priest gun batteries, again with a mix of GHQ and H&R figures in the guns and in the HQ vehicles.

This is an example of my Romanian artillery. In this case it is a "heavy" battery of 100mm Skoda howitzers. These same guns also serve my Italian army when placed onto different crew stands.

Here those same crew figures serve a "light" battery of Schneider 75mm guns. So my Romanian crews can serve 2 different guns, while each of the gun types they serve can serve 2 different armies. Very flexible.

These are Italian Autocannone truck-mounted 75mm AA guns from H&R. They come with 2 gunners cast onto the guns. I have added a standing H&R artillery crew figure as well -- needed the guns to look a bit more "busy".

And here I have added a couple of H&R artillery crewmen to stand behind and load H&R's Semovente da 90mm SP AT guns. Helps to give a visual presentation of just how much of a kluge job this SP AT was.

I could not go without offering at least one pic of my Soviets, as that is my largest army (by far). Here is an emplaced multi-gun AAMG mount, with two GHQ figures are crew.

BTW I also use the artillery crew figures for HQs, medical stands, and civilians … anyone who might be around a battlefield but not carrying a rifle.

Here as examples of non-artillery use is a tank refueling point, with standing GHQ and kneeling H&R figures.

Hope that was interesting and useful for you.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

Thank you, Mark 1. Useful information and several good ideas.