The "Less Than High Speed" 1/6th Military Product Archive

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SDU Lam was the team sniper.

 

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Lam had modern British camo. But his "anchor" was a Heckler & Koch HK91 SG1 sniper rifle. Working bi-pod, removable scope, and with a 5 round mag and a 20 round magazine. The bipod neck clamp could detach with some futzing, so my guess is DML left it as an option for someone to just have a HK91, albeit with the cheek riser on it ( it was static and could not be removed) Fire selector worked on these, and the ported barrels were a big deal, as most 1/6 weapons at the time were not ported.

 

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Some background for Lam

 

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This was Cyber Hobby Exclusive SDU "Breacher" Wai

 

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So the deal was that if you bought directly from Cyber Hobby, DML's own exclusive site, you would get some bonus accessories. In this case, it was a 870 "breaching" shotgun, a flash bang and a sledge hammer. The standard Hi-Power was replaced with a Glock. The standard Michael Chan "balaclava" was replaced by a three hole mask.

The rest of the gear was SDU rehash.

Does the shotgun look familiar? It should. Hot Toys did a "mold lift" and used it to add to Colonial Marine Hicks in their early Aliens set. Hicks used an Ithaca 37 shotgun in the film. So it's not screen accurate, but early Hot Toys at the time was likely trying to cut a few corners where it could.

For a time, this shotgun was one of the rarest loose accessories in the entire modern side of the hobby.

This was IIRC, the very first Cyber Hobby Exclusive, hence why this figure got quite a bit of additions and changes in the gear.

 

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Michael Chan made a return as close protection HK G4 figure. He came with a MP5K that could be fitted into a briefcase. We see the first iteration of the expandable law enforcement baton in the hobby. Back then, you got one molded closed and one molded open. And a pager! Because cell phones were not common then. And you notice the "stripe" on the Glock pistol, to identify "friendly" weapons if they needed to be drawn and brandished.

The "anchor" here is really the suit. It was DML's first suit and it was pretty awesome and coveted for a time.

 

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DML had a "budget" line for a while. That was not a flap cover boxed set. But a window facing set with fewer accessories and slightly smaller price point. We see the return of Cheong, with his trusty Nokia phone. Did he have to sign a three year contract to get it? LOL.

 

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So DML made a team of "good guys", so they experimented with a "bad guy" for them to fight and arrest. This is the infamous "Dee Jr" With a hodge podge of gear reused from other sets at the time. And I think that's a Star TAC Motorola cell phone.

The body does have some tattoos. But the common criticism for this set is he didn't have any unique weapons. Looking at the jeans, you can really see this was truly generation 1 level production from DML. At one point, I think I saw a dealer try to move these for 12 dollars each. Because they just were not moving.

 

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Last one for today. Fun stuff. And in the vein of SDU and the interest in law enforcement figures at the time.

Here is Armoury HK SDU, designed after Chow Yun Fat in John Woo's film, Hard Boiled.

 

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It mold lifts DML gloved hands, but here is where brands experimented with molded boots, but with a cut out molded tongue, and having "string" as laces. Chow Yun Fat, of course, was huge back then in the late 90's / early 2000s.

 

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So here is Chow's gear, but with some additions to the stock kit. The full stock MP5 and pistol here are Intoyz, and didn't come with the original set. The rest I believe actually came with the original figure.

The bullets to the chrome 357 Magnum revolver were added because it was an iconic scene in Hard Boiled, where Chow Yun Fat spins the cylinder of a revolver after taking on an entire street gang in warehouse literally by himself. You'll see mold lifts from DML for the revolver, the shotgun shells, the radio, gloved hands and flash bangs. And you got a real 1/1 scale patch.

 

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Here is the entire warehouse shootout from Hard Boiled. It's a fun scene, very cutting edge action for it's time, and it makes the entire Armoury figure set make more sense in context.

 

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DML's NYPD Bill Smith ESU was the rare figure given a 2nd run. The first did not have the Uzi, sledgehammer and "hooligan" tool/pry bar, and the 2nd one had those items. The second release was called "Bill Smith 2000"

The explanation that DML gave was that the Uzi was a "captured" weapon or something taken from a crime scene. What a dealer told me was that DML had planned a Secret Service figure, and the Uzi was supposed to be the "anchor" weapon/anchor piece to that set, but it was never realized for some reason. His speculation is that after the Ultimate Soldier controversy with the Armed Terrorist figure being pulled from shelves right after Columbine, that DML didn't want their figures in some mock ups/photo shoots with a Secret Service agent hovering over a fictional dead politician. At least one at the time that was widely unpopular.

True? Untrue? It was rare for DML to give a high profile weapon release that wasn't locked into a new boxed set. Also DML was loath to give two main weapons in their boxed sets at the time.

So the question becomes - What did DML do with the rest of the hypothetical Secret Service agent's gear for a release?

 

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A common belief back then was that DML Patrick DSS was the other half of the "missing" Secret Service agent set.

The same tooling was used for the Chan G4 suit, but in a different style. Also the black socks and dress shoes were reused from G4. But the belt system was new. New paddle holster, ammo pouches, radio, handcuff case and a nifty belt badge. Strange as it seems, that badge might be the most valuable thing still today, as finding good belt badges is actually kind of challenging.

Patrick was unusual in that he only came with a pistol and not with a main weapon of some kind. While most DML flapped boxed sets had a weapons "card" on the flap, this set didn't. The argument was that the extra money was spent in the tooling and material and labor into the suit.

But odds are that DML didn't want to put the Uzi in this set. They wanted to try to boost the sale of Bill Smiths that likely weren't moving and try to drive the sale of two sets instead of one.

 

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Last note about Bill Smith. His set was the first appearance of a DML model Kpot. So DML reused this mold, over and over and over again for it's modern sets for the next 4-5 years. Which drove people nuts because it was made very poorly. In future releases, DML would just pump out a Smith K Pot, then add in a helmet cover over it for their other sets. Smith also used the oldest generation 1 body type, which was notoriously thin. Hence Smith has a very small tight fitting uniform that won't fit well on just about any other 1/6th figure.

For all intents and purposes, he might as well be wearing yoga pants. Or a yoga workout suit.

A common belief was that DML wanted to model it's proposed Secret Service agent figure after this photo. It's of an agent right after John Hinkley shot President Ronald Reagan. Hence why an "Uzi" submachine gun was the likely main weapon for the hypothetical set.

 

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Here is Dragon Winona. ( The sculpt likeness was meant to be a rift on actress Winona Ryder ) She was the first DML modern female figure release. Her selling point was the M40 sniper rifle ( aka the Remington Model 700 series rifle) The bolt action functioned, the scope was technically removable ( I think DML wanted to leave the door open to reuse the mold but to have different scopes later, there was a male/female pin system to hold it down) , and the 5 round internal magazine below could be removed if you pried it out. This was cutting edge at the time and this weapon still holds up today as a high quality weapon.

Without Winona, our hobby would be much different. A large share of the online hobbyists using message boards at the time were using the forums on the official Dragon Models board. Well Winona had some problems with her elbows. Bad QC and many elbows just plain broke. Some in the box in shipping apparently. When some posters brought it up, they were banned. A LOT of them. The moderator then was named "Ray" ( the second SDU release was named after him), and suddenly everyone was being gaslighted. Nothing was wrong. Everything is fine. Take your Soma pills. Ignore the handmaidens in the corner. The more obtuse it got, the more people just unloaded on DML in their own forums. And more people were banished like Zod into the internet limbo.

The remnants of the mass of outcasted DML forum posters became the old Warrior Forum EZBoard, which spawned the Sixth Division EZboard and later the OSW forum.

 

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DML's version of Chow Yun Fat, based loosely on the film, The Corruptor. And to keep within the NYPD law enforcement theme of the time.