Thanks Rubicon for the information.
The Bunkers:This is easy. We (my gaming club) make our own bunkers using original WW2 bunkers as a pattern. Making our own is so much better and easier than the resin or plastic ones you can buy. Not only are they easy to make, but cost so much less. We can't see why anyone would buy them. I would like to post here an article from a wargames magazine that shows players how easy it is to make your own WW2 bunkers in any scale. More about this later.
The 8.8cm Flak 37:Because from what experience tells me, I don't think Rubicon's Flak 36/37 will not be available anytime soon, so I might end up getting one these Warlord Games plastic 88 kits (made by Italeri or PSC?) mostly because the 88 as sit would make a neat victory objective marker. That is if I get one at all. For most skirmish games like Bolt Action, Chain of Command, and Battleground II, an 88 is an over-kill or out of place for anything useful, but like I said, it would look nice as an objective marker. That being said, I would rather have the Rubicon 88 than the WG 88.
The new US Infantry:Having assemble LOTS of their older plastic US infantry, I can see from the picture there are slight improvements. I need to point out that having weapons already molded in the hands and having them separate is a positive and negative situation. It is a positive in that assembly is much easier and faster, but it is a negative your choices in variations are much more limited.
I have also noticed there are two unique (and somewhat odd) poses. Nothing wrong with it, but you can only do so much with a specialize posed as opposed to what you can do with more generic pose. For example, that figure on one leg running (or tripping*) has a very limited choice of arms, whereas the more generic pose like the figure above the running man has a lot more options or arms. Also would have been nice to see a few more arm choices with M1 Garand Rifles than just three. Note that the rifle being carried in the left hand is not an M1 Garand. It looks to be a 1903 Springfield? I think it would have been better if they had made it an M1.
I believe that a better sprue design would have been to remove those single arms with only the Springfield, Shotgun, and maybe the helmet then use to precious space for some standard carrying and/or shooting arms with empty hands. Then add a 1903 Springfield, Shotgun, and of course an M1 Garand separately. This would give the assembler a better and unique choice. In short,
I would have done a mix of weapons molded in hands and a few with empty hands and separate weapons to choose from (especially the unique weapons) giving the assembler a much wider range of choices to work with, and still allowing them to not bother with the empty hands if they didn't want to fuss with it. But that is just me.
*can easily be made into a tripping pose.
Okay, that is my $0.02 worth.
