Toys and Stuff: Forces of Valor (FOV) / Unimax Deep Dive: Pt 42 Set #83009 (2010) U.S. 1st Infantry Division (Normandy 1944) Pt 5 U.S. Pose 15

This guy gave me a bit of grief in a couple of different ways. First of all, he and the machine gun simply do not fit on the base provided - both the figure and gun do not fit on the base at the same time. If you pose him on the base sideways, the gun sticks up in the air like it's floating! Okay, fine, leave him off the base.

Next: that goofy machine gun he's firing was a bear to identify and in the end what I came up with was a 'best guess'. It's not your standard 30mm MG on tripod, nor is it a BAR. After spending way too much time on the Internet, I came up with it possibly being a Johnston D-1918 MG. This pose was never repeated in any other FOV set so it makes me wonder what they were using as a reference source and if someone at FOV noticed the gaffe and pulled the plug on this guy. That would have been a shame - they could have just substituted a different gun and continued using the figure.

U.S. Pose 15

Johnston D-1918 MG

Looking at this graphic culled from the Internet, the third gun from the top stood out as a likely candidate. I'm not saying this is it, but it's close.