Crew for ESCI Wirbelwind

The following are pictures of an ESCI 1:72 Wirbelwind (the kit belonged to Trickett, but I made it and painted so it'll never leave my wargame room, <snarl>) built from the box. I didn't like the bareness of the empty and exposed crew compartment. I suppose I could have tarped it, but I also wanted the guns to move. Thus it was back to looking for excess figures and out came the number 11 Exacto Knife!

The figures used are the ones supplied with the Matchbox Hanomag kit. I have a considerable number of these models. They were reformed as seen below. The gunner is the Hanomag gunner's upper body on the sitting lower body of an old ESCI (US) 155mm GMC crewman. The other two fellows, the ammo handlers on the sides of the gun, are considerably reformed Hanomag "jumping out of the APC" guys.

It was extremely difficult to get these guys into the compartment and I had to carefully place them in before the top superstructure of the turret was glued down. I remember sitting in the turret of the modern version of the Wirbelwind, the West German Gepard; it was incredibly cramped, I could hardly breathe and I had to sit bolt upright, so maybe the Wirblewind is the originator of anti-aircraft discomfort?