The 'Flakvierling' Sd. Kfz. 7/1 20mm

By the late war the sky belonged to the Allies, and the German soldier's best answer to it was a hedge of spinning barrels. The 2cm Flakvierling — "quad flak" — bolted four rapid-firing 20mm cannon onto one mount, and together they could throw up a storm of shells at a combined rate approaching two thousand rounds a minute. It was built to kill the low-flying fighter-bombers that hunted German columns, filling the air ahead of an attacking plane with a wall of fire. Mounted here on the tracked bed of an . 7 half-track, it could keep pace with the army and fight on the move. And when its barrels came down to fire on men instead of aircraft, the effect was horrific — a weapon feared on the ground almost as much as in the air.

K&C's model is a snow-camouflaged . 7/1, its quad guns elevated to scan the sky, crewed by three gunners in white snow suits — each wearing a red band on his upper left arm. That detail is telling: because German and Soviet troops sometimes wore near-identical winter whites, coloured armbands were used to tell friend from foe at a glance. It anchors the collection's flak sub-cluster with the Skywatcher spotting for it and the Vehicle Guards protecting it, alongside the winter infantry of the MG34 Team. As the centrepiece of a snowbound diorama, a whitewashed half-track with its barrels raised to the sky is a striking piece.

Model: BBG132 / King & Country / 1/30 (60mm) scale / matte finish / half-track with three gunners