Ever since they elected to back out of the diecast military vehicle market several years ago, retailers and distributors alike have been lobbying Corgi to make a valiant return, thereby upholding a tradition that stretches way back into the 1960s. As it turned out, 2019 marked the 75th Anniversary of the D-Day landings and served as a perfect way for Corgi to return to the war front both on the ground and in the air.

Beginning in September, eight repurposed 1:50 scale WWII-era vehicles will be released, each paying homage to the men and machines that fought so courageously towards the closing days of the War in Europe. So, without further ado, here’s what you can expect to see in the latter half of 2019 and hopefully serving as the tip of the spear for the coming year.

CC60418 – The best known American halftracks were the M series made as a standardized design by Autocar, Diamond T, International and White. The M series had a similar front end to the White M3A1 Scout Car but used more powerful engines: a 147bhp 6.3-liter White AX in the Autocar, Diamond T, and White, and a 143bhp 1HC in the International. Each version had four-speed gearboxes with two-speed transfer boxes and drive to the front axle as well as the tracked bogie. The M series halftracks were widely used by US forces in most theatres of the war, and were also supplied under the Lend-Lease Program to Great Britain, Canada and the Soviet Union. A total of 41,170 were made.

CC50309 – The Bedford QLD lorry was the most common British-made 4×4 truck produced, with over 52,000 supplied to the British Forces between 1941 and 1945. Many of these later continued in service with the British Army in Cyprus, Korea and Malaya. The first Bedford QL trucks rolled off the assembly line at Vauxhall’s Luton factory early in 1941. They were powered by the reliable GM 3 ½-litre six-cylinder petrol engine.

CC60013 – Development of the Sd. Kfz. 7 can be traced back to a 1934 requirement for an 8-ton half-track. The vehicle first appeared in 1938 and was destined to be used mainly as the tractor for the 8.8cm flak gun. The Sd. Kfz. 7 was an extremely useful vehicle, employed both as a weapons carrier and prime mover by the Wehrmacht. They also saw service as observation and command posts for V2 rocket batteries. The vehicle could carry up to 12 men and a considerable quantity of supplies, as well as pulling up to 8000kg (17,600 lbs) of equipment. Most were fitted with a winch, which enabled them to pull smaller disabled vehicles out of mud or other quagmires. A mainstay of the German Army, the Sd. Kfz. 7 was even admired by the enemies of the Reich. In fact, the British tried to make exact copies of captured Sd. Kfz. 7s and some vehicles were appropriated for use by the Allies after World War II.

CC60613 – The Cromwell tank was used by the British Army during the later stages of World War II. The Cromwell was ordered in 1941 and intended to replace the lightweight Crusader “cruiser” tank by being more heavily armoured, and, it was hoped, more survivable in battle. Its greater weight was to be driven by a 600-horsepower Rolls Royce Meteor engine, a derivative of Rolls Royce’s line of aircraft engines. Initial models, however, were powered by other engines and were designated Cavaliers and Centaurs when they entered service in mid-1942. The first genuine Cromwells with Meteor engines entered service in early 1943.

CC60112 – The “Churchill” began life as a 1939 requirement that envisaged a return to trench-warfare, and was therefore slow and heavily armored like the Russian KV-1 series. That said, the final Churchill prototype was much lighter than had first been thought acceptable, although it still resembled a World War I tank in appearance. Rushed into production at a time when a cross-channel invasion seemed imminent, it suffered early reliability problems and was not fully introduced until 1943. Early combat experience during the ill-fated Dieppe raid in 1942 was disappointing, but the vehicle proved more mobile in the rough terrain of North Africa. The tank excelled in its specialized variants, which include the AVRE, Crocodile flamethrower tank, bridgelayer and more. In fact, it wasn’t until the 1960s that the last Churchill was finally retired.

CC51031 – By all accounts, the M4 Sherman medium tank was regarded as the workhorse of the US Army during World War II. In fact, virtually all of the Allied armies employed the Sherman in their armed forces, including the British, who developed an upgunned variant called the “Firefly”. Eleven different US plants manufactured six basic models of the Sherman, and by June 1944 over 49,234 battle-ready vehicles had been produced. While it was no match for the German Panther or Tiger tanks, the Sherman soldiered on, using its weight in numbers to wrest control of Europe from the Wehrmacht.

CC60215 – In many respects, the Panther tank was viewed as the finest armored fighting vehicle of the Second World War. Based in large part upon the Soviet’s highly successful T-34 medium tank, the PzKpfw V Ausfuhrung G (Type G) was built by several manufacturers including MAN, Daimler-Benz, and MNH. Mounting a fearsome 7.5cm KwK42 L/70 cannon and two 7.92mm MG34 machineguns, the Panther Ausf. G represented the third and certainly the most impressive installment in the Panther series.

CC60513 – The German Waffenamt issued an order to design the VK4501(H) (as the PzKpfw VI Ausf E was then known) in May 1941, just one month prior to the commencement of Operation Barbarossa. Interestingly, Henschel und Sohn of Kassel was charged with building the heavily armored chassis while Krupp, by far the largest munitionwerks in Germany, was given the task of developing the turret. The PzKpfw VI Ausfuhrung E (type E) was one of the first German tanks to feature a torsion bar with eight interleaved wheels, which was designed to support the mammoth 57-ton tank. The Ausf E mounted a huge 8.8cm KwK36 L/56 cannon and featured two MG34 machine guns for close support against enemy infantry. By war’s end, 1,354 vehicles had been produced, some rolling off the Wegmann assembly line.