Review Part II - BMC D-Day Soldiers

Now we come to the second part of this review:

The BMC D-Day Playset comes with plenty of soldiers representing three armies: USA in olive drab, Germany in gray,  and Great Britain in light tan. Figures are in the 54mm to 60mm range. I first came across these figures about 20 years ago when I bought the original D-Day Playset at Toys R Us.

Here are the troops by country:

24 American Infantrymen with Gen. Teddy Roosevelt Junior

22 Germans (with Rommel figure)

12 British including a Scot playing bagpipes

That is a total of 58 figures. Indeed, a good amount of men for a playset this size. Troops also have enough heavy weapons. The Germans have two mortar crews and a couple of machine-gun teams. US forces have a couple of heavy machine-guns, bazookas. flamethrowers, BARs and mortar men. Granted, the bazooka man is lying down dead. The British have a BAR gunner

US Soldiers: Machine Gunner, BAR gunner, grenade thrower

One thing about the current batch of soldiers is that the plastic is a bit stiff. I am surprised only one rifle was broken in transit.

There is a good assortment of poses. One glaring problem stands outs. The sculpting ranges from mediocre to poor

US GIs: bazooka man (dead?_, kneeling BAR gunner. kneeling rifleman

Rifleman, casualty, mortar and mortar man, officer

General Teddy Roosevelt Junior pointing with stick, machine-gun loader, flamethrower operator (prone)

Generic mortars for US and German crews

I have had or seen most Army Men since Ajax and Plasticraft. Only a few feet from where I sit are bags of Tim Mee M16 troops, Lido World War II type infantry and a bag of the BMC Iwo Jima Marines and Japanese. To be honest, the D-Day troops are some of the most awkward sculpts I have ever seen. Immediately noticeable are the ill-fitting helmets.

German rifleman, grenade thrower, kneeling with submachine gun

German mortar men

German casualty, General Rommel (resembles like the Matchbox figure - best sculpt in the set)

German casualty, machine gunner and loader

Some of the figures could be improved by a head-swap. There is a real mixed bag when it comes ot quality among these figures.

Jeff Imel, BMC’s current owner, told me he will continue to produce these figures. Having new molds made would be too expensive.  Perhaps there is someway the existing molds could be altered to mitigate the worst of the sculpting. 

British Infantry: 3 riflemen and Bren gunner. Note the short rifles.

Rifleman, officer with Thompson submachine gun, Scot with bagpipes. 

You can get the D-Day playset through Amazon.com or BMC Toys' website. If the set is temporarily out of stock, you can usually by components of it separately.

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