New Sino-Japanese War sets 1937-1945 Part 1, Erwin Sell has found several interesting sets of figures. The figures cover the battle between the Chinese and Japanese in World War Two.
New Sino-Japanese War Sets Chinese Figures
While the US and most stores barely receive any army classic figures or accessories for what we can use in our hobby, online you can find more.
Many are of course either crude copies over wasted mold of previews made but others are quite interesting cheap lines. Till 2014/18 Some new Chinese-made cheap lines were sold such as DGN, also sold under Hing Fat and Red cat distributor army sets of WW2, modern armies, ACW and ARW. But more recently the stores or even distributors barely carry any. I had turn attention more to Aliexpress that is the eBay/Amazon hybrid Chinese version operating since 2010 and part of Alibaba group.
I usually look for interesting cheap figures I can give some use of or the accessories coming with them.
The site offers often extremely fast shipping and economical ways to get delivery with good tracking notification if do the right sign-in free member as eBay or Amazon, you can pay direct using PayPal or other methods. I have been using it for several years now without issues.
Recently I come across a huge vast cheat nice trees, fences, rocks, and even a nice new tank that I may show soon in my FB blogs but also several WW2 and modern army sets, some crude, some better.
These two sets got my attention first.
New Sino-Japanese War Sets Figure Details
I will post the Chinese army first.
Price $6.99 plus shipping. Total $15.28 to 17.00 depending on shipping and seller prices.
Some of these sets may be found off amazon but not always and not at the same prices.
The Chinese army set as obviously produced in China today depicts only the non-nationalist army but more likely the communist armies (Eighth Route Army and New Fourth Army). It comes with an actual plastic and paper Chinese national flag in a nice simple rock base inside the bag with 50 figures in 10 poses but is not a quite consistent same amount poses distribution but least 4 repeats on one pose. The bag head card is a label with “Peacekeeping mission” +Fight like a man “words in it. Distributor by two different brand
The sets are cheap-made figures AKA-DGN-HING FAT army men TUBE sets made in 2014 with the same scale range and close enough detail. This time the figures come with a “ practical” base that can be attached on or off as an option, the plastic bases are nice terrain made not too hill not too flat. I even get some for other figures of my collection. I call it practical as amount repeated poses you can leave some without a base to mount or vehicles, place on buildings or inside bunkers trenches easy. Yet the connectors are so cheap you need to glue the rest if want them to stand in bases.
The two sets are meant to be used for the SINO-JAPANESE war 1936-1945 and even for following civil war 1945-1949 where Communism, unfortunately, took over mainland China. (They have of course a great potential to be used as N Korean Army or Chinese Red army for the Korean war as uniforms were same or similar).
Chinese army Set consist of 10 different poses as follow in medium grey color hard-soft plastic.
Scale without base 50 mm and with base 52/53 mm max. Yet amazingly they match to blend with many Airfix that contrary to many is bellow 54mm.
Two of the poses are 100% copied from two former TM brand Vietnam era war soldiers (prone and clubbing) even with the M16 bad done copied but interesting with an intent varied uniform with Chinese boots/hats to make looks as Sino-Japanese War era.
Then there 6 completely new poses made with correct era weapons and alike rifles as well uniforms, while 2 other poses are with correct era uniform but with post-1970 modern weapons, one appears to be a variation type of the PM-63.
Out of 10 poses set the 6 classic Chinese new poses have interesting classical Chinese weapons such as the Dadao sword-machete depicted in 3 poses that was massively deployed by all Chinese soldiers in both armies Communist and nationalist and used as a hand to hand combat weapons. Another pose shows the bugle that distinguished so well the Chinese armies well into the Korean war that were they used as a way of intimidation and self-courage of course. Also, the stick hand grenade was copied from German design but manufactured in China. All these weapons had been portrayed by figures made by OWN brand that I carry and sold and the grenade by new CTS brand Chinese figures Korean war set. Regarding uniform with exception of the two TM copied poses all rest have the tunics very decent done and correct depiction of the Zhongshan suit tunic used by the Chinese Army and its in two styles, the puttee boots/shoes and 3 different main hats used by the Chinese as well one pose with back hanged straw traditional hat depicted. The non-modern rifles are poor in detail but acceptable.
Figure Comparsion
The other 4(included two TM copies with M16 ) poses with modern weapons could be converted by easy cutting off minor parts of weapons to make them look less modern and can pass easy if not too picky about. I am sure if these figures are painted can be seen much better.
I find this set interesting enough and a good addition to my collections as will add more for the Sino-Japanese war -WW2, the Korean war, and even can be used as first Indochina war or second if like. Scale wise photos can show by themself but to my observation, they match and blend perfectly with the 1/32 small range easy such Airfix, ESCI, 21 century, OWN, DGN, and because represent Asian soldiers often far smaller and skinner than European or western soldiers they may go well with larger foes scale.
Pros
Price versus amount poses and figures per bag even with shipping is great.
Amount action poses the possibility of many easy conversion
The bases removable option good idea to place figures else or to lay figures flat without the base as casualties
Descent simple detail in historical correct uniforms depiction.
Scale in the low 1/32 range but taller than DGN-HF Chinese army set made, can be used with taller figures as Asian soldiers
Cons
Detail is quite simply poor in weapons and faces.
Some depicted with modern weapons require cuts or need conversion.
Some plastic molding cast factory defects such as minor holes
The body fill of figures is rather thin.
Figures set from 1 to 10 score with 10 being best. I give them 6
Japanese Army review set next …
If you are interested in these figures you can buy them here.
Update.
Mark Taverna found out figures are in most copies of HO sets by Caesar company.
THIS looks like a way better bargain for people who would want this stuff?
https://www.ebay.com/itm/184926329488?hash=item2b0e77da90:g:upgAAOSwbU1g5FYs
That is not the same.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/313551707995?_trkparms=aid%3D1110006%26algo%3DHOMESPLICE.SIM%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D233037%26meid%3D96ddaa4da53647af90e225bb155d23bc%26pid%3D101195%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D12%26sd%3D184430393700%26itm%3D313551707995%26pmt%3D1%26noa%3D0%26pg%3D2047675%26algv%3DSimplAMLv9PairwiseUnbiasedWeb%26brand%3DUnbranded&_trksid=p2047675.c101195.m1851&amdata=cksum%3A31355170799596ddaa4da53647af90e225bb155d23bc%7Cenc%3AAQAGAAACAPYp%252FoGnI3u12oWox22x2z8nF%252BE7DaA2%252FkWzJh1cal%252F3H2T0JQP8rcu%252Bq1DwoVoQpMbzH5fefy5ZeAcxXOgQBANjrkRY01QeYiRHg8wfEwunbyRjUScRbkFnWbSjXPzU1lqcFUT7wxYFZ%252BFqQVlMol1%252Fo%252FjIY8N%252Fe3Ay2HKj4y2F0Ux0kR6VeNAmuj6W5fbezdNGhTaEAl0vd6AsQmPuDOisGThcVF9dMdX6PMs%252B93B7flx2lDSr3IdnrBbKOSUkuEAL5H3kt%252FuHB0cqrxgk3t1bz3YVsknr0cqk%252FP9sxUEAFdoyY%252Fu5QSjrdSCW9OqVmfV2Rmb5rEIlNN2i9RNRA1nLKx%252FWg0ImbU9HBGslHFzN0yznvrBWzjjHOpsiPFFP3MXetMQcvYVFEDykRa%252B6a2%252FjweCINrgk%252Fm%252FoSyV2HktNcfrj8NNeRd7l0rkucDupEu6gAu1JyoTddp8rHxKXqksOiZsAwKtMWMn1dk7%252BqYsBNNQTW7wpMUFaJ7I5dgK3CyNEkF%252BCzcR6uwnzQTxnmEnZzJpWuIhwpTVhsjpGJKAB6ZtIjPPsvqOBO1qB8RKRlXB670hT1nFLWnwaVA7AmD%252BVUrpwZNIb74lmV45OknnBQ6ZgdNFTXRC4YFesX2nnoUpLrcxqF07m9Onkq2IurZHy4OAi8Zo0nj2eOcdXm2DC%7Campid%3APL_CLK%7Cclp%3A2047675
Neither that …
https://a.aliexpress.com/_mLw2f4p
Hey Erwin, can’t you just put them up on Ebay?
Aldo.If you read my post as i explained.
These are not on Ebay listing and not any Ebay listing post before that are only wasted copies of others.These ,the japanese ,the eastern insurgent army and modern NATO sets are all off aliexpress only or Amazon international and not all in Amazon.
by them where?
Follow link above post by me.
I ordered them .. I like them. let’s see when they arrive
Detlef
I will review Japanese tomorrow. With plenty more photos in my FB blog as I did with Chinese army comparing with many other brands.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1373047929714901/?ref=share