During the latter part of World War 2, as it lost its iron grip on the skies, Germany began to rely more and more on antiaircraft guns and weapons as its first line of defense against marauding Allied aircraft. What this meant in practical terms is that they had to range far and wide to find suitable vehicles to create mobile mounts for all sorts of weaponry, putting them on virtually anything that could move and handle the weight. Of course, eventually this expedient rigging became unsustainable, but not without cost to the allies.

Due to the nature of our armament, and the tactics in which we shall perfect ourselves, we shall be called upon to carry out operations of far-reaching military importance, and we shall habitually go into action when the need is immediate and extreme. Let me call your attention to the fact that our badge is the great American eagle. This is a fitting emblem for a division that will crush its enemies by falling upon them like a thunderbolt from the skies.

The 101^st Airborne Division…has no history, but it has a rendezvous with destiny.

Produced by UMM-USA (Unique Master Models-USA), these three shapes are part of a larger catalog that contains an extensive number of profiles and sizes made from extruded lead. The shapes and various sizes are useful to the modeler in a variety of applications. I’ve been using the Round Lead Wire (RLW) 0.2 as vertical railing sections for quite a few years. The Half Round lead wire (HRLW) and Flat Lead Wire (FLW), are all shapes that are nicely extruded and have the same profile dimension throughout with measurements bearing out the high quality of the extrusion process.