Introduction

This new release from ICM, titled World War II French Tank Crew in 1/35th scale is a great release to accompany the FCM36 WWII French Light Tank. The set provides three tank crew figures, and two children being given a guided look at a tank. 

Review

This offering from ICM is provided in the usual manner, of a flip top cardboard box, with an additional card lid containing the artwork. Inside of the box, there is apainting and instructional guide sheet and a single sprue inside a re-sealable plastic bag. 

Tank Crew

The figures provided consist of three tank crew, and two children. Tank crew uniform in the French military during WWII, are ecliptic at best, with them wearing anything from wellington boots and coveralls, to full officers uniform and leather jackets. Head wear was basically a steel helmet. The helmet was steel with a leather liner and front bump guard, and had a distinctive knight’s helmet with crossed cannons emblem. In this release we are presented with what I believe to be 1officer and 2 lower ranks.

The officer is in an upright position, pointing something out to one of the children. This figure is wearing a beret, with a badge on the front that has a crossed item on the front- it could be cannons, but I cannot see a knight’s helmet. The person I believe to be a suitable driver, he is wearing loose fitting trousers or coveralls, a black leather jacket (the reason I mention a black leather jacket, is because there was 2 types. One in black leather and one in brown. The black classed as the M20 and the brown the M35), he has the belt with a pistol holder attached to it, which is accurate. However, the helmet does not have the metal badge on the front, and the leather neck guard is not present in the examples I have found. There is also a ridge running over the top of the helmet running front to back, which would be indicative of a WWI French helmet, and at the very least this ridge needs to be removed. The last soldier, is wearing trousers with pullover, and beret, the stance is relaxed, a badge is indicated to be present on his beret in the instruction, but I cannot see it on the sprue. 

The Children

The children provided are I believe one under ten and one a little over 10 judging by their size. They are both wearing shorts, one is wearing a jumper over his shirt, and holding a beret. The other is wearing a jacket over a nondescript top, this time wearing a beret. The facial features are of a very high standard, from an injection moulded offering, with the officer figure having a well defined moustache. The hands and finger detail, is again very good and I see no issues with this figure set at all. The moulding quality is high, with minimal connection points between sprue and parts and I am pleased to say that the point of connection is small. The figures have well defined areas that the parts are laid out in which makes finding the pieces you are looking for easy. 

Conclusion

This release from ICM is a nice addition to go with the French release. However, unusually for ICM there does appear to be at least one issue in the form of the helmet in the figure I referred to as the driver. I do like that the children are suitably scaled, and so realistic. So this release is a mixed blessing.