Anyone who has seen “Saving Private Ryan” will be familiar with the 5th U.S. Rangers in the Normandy landings. What is lesser known is the important role the accidental landing of 5th Rangers at the wrong point of Omaha beach had in saving the day on that beach. This set of figures from Dragon appears from the boxart to be more inspired however by the better known role that the 2nd Rangers had on D-Day, that being the assault on the cliffs at Pointe Du Hoc to silence the naval guns wrongly believed to be at the top.
This set of four figures comes on one large, light grey sprue together with a small sprue that holds the weapons. It is an older set so the mouldings are a little thick and clunky in some areas, in particular the boots, around the webbing and on the backpacks and ammo pouches. Other than that the faces look good and I do like the fact that the helmets have the chin straps moulded across the brim. There is more than the usual ammount of clean-up of flashing and mould seams required also.
The two figures armed with the M1 Garand are moulded wearing the Ranger Assault Vest ( famous for being thrown away at the earliest possible opportunity ) and three wear uninflated life preservers. Helmets are provided for all four but there is also an optional knit cap for one. All are modelled in poses that emphasise that they are in action and moving with haste.
Equipment included for the four are four canteens, one holstered M1911 .45 pistol, one pistol mag pouch, six BAR mag pouches, eight M1 Garand mag pouches, one bayonet, two entrenching tools, two large backpacks, two smaller packs with attached entrenching tools that mount to the large backpack, two butt packs, four M7 gas mask cases, two M1 ammo bags ( though you will need to add your own straps to match the boxart ), and one first aid pouch.
Also incuded are also two chest pouches for the assault vests, two large pack sized pouches that form the upper back of the assault vests, one bayonet in a scabbard forming part of the rear of an assault vest, and four large pouches with smaller attached pouches that form the pouches on the lower front of the vests.
An additional five M1 Garand ammo pouches and a Thompson mag pouch are moulded as part of their respective figures, which was a bad move as the moulding is thick and heavy with poor detail.
The quality of the equipment is not up to current standards, the mouldings are very heavy in places, the BAR mag pouches are shaped wrong at the top, the canteens lack the correct shape ( on the real one the way the flaps at the top fold gives them a tapered look which these are missing ) and the moulded on mags are just ugly. The pouch pockets and backpacks are also all too square looking more like a stiff, solid object than a flexible material pouch that is part of the vest rather than a stuck on piece.
Weapons included are a Thompson sub-maching gun, a Browning Automatic Rifle ( BAR ) without a bipod, an M1 Garand, and another M1 Garand fitted with a rifle grenade. The mouldings on these are quite respectable. There is also a bangalore torpedo being carried by one figure though it is too short, scaling out at 1m long rather than the correct 1.5m.
Overall these aren’t the best set of figures around. I’ve seen worse, a lot worse and they are better than some of the earlier Tamiya figures. The poses are good, the weapons are good, the faces are good, but they need either a lot of work to sharpen up the detail on the web gear, boots and equipment or to have the boots and equipment outright replaced by better ones.
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