Following their habit of developing groups of toys, Benbros issued a collection of military or Army models of which the first was a Field Gun. Unlike the others it was not given a number so it was probably issued before the main group.

 

Many of the Qualitoy military models had good play value with moving parts and the Field Gun was no exception. It was fitted with a spring-loaded mechanism which could fire 'shells' or matchsticks. With later models four grey plastic 'shells' was included. Sparking 'caps' could also be added to create a nice dramatic sound.

 

There were four variations of the Field Gun, the first two easily identified by having large carriage wheels similar to those on horse-drawn models. On these variations the space between the arms of the mounting frame was filled in and the 'Benbros' name was included on each side of the shield on the inside with 'Made in England' added at the top. Two colours were used for these variations, one in olive-green and the other a dark gloss-green, both with shiny black carriage wheels.

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The third variation of the Gun had small painted metal wheels with black tyres and this version included four grey plastic 'shells', probably on a small sprue. These were only a few millimeters long but being lightweight they fired a nice distance. Another noticeable difference on this variation was the open mounting frame for the gun, and there were also several other differences including the absence of id. and a fairly unadorned shield. It was painted semi-matt army-green and was also used as a load for the Army Low Loader & Field Gun and in the combined set Land-Rover & Field Gun.

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The last Field Gun, which was painted olive-green, continued with the open-style mounting frame and the four plastic 'shells' but the barrel and shield reverted to earlier castings with rivet studs and other detail, although the Benbros name was omitted. This variation was fitted with black plastic wheels with treaded tyres, slightly larger in size than the metal ones of variation 3.

 

The Field Gun appeared in two different illustrated end-flap boxes. The brightest was a red & yellow box which had illustrations on three of the sides showing a gun with carriage wheels. On the fourth side, 'Scale Model Field Gun' was printed with instructions on how to operate the model but no mention of 'shells'. On the end-flaps 'Field Gun' and a large 'Qualitoys' logo with a central 'B' were printed but interestingly not the actual Benbros name.

 

The other box for the Field Gun was a cream one, slightly smaller in size, with red writing and a line drawing of the small-wheeled gun printed on alternate sides with 'Benbros Qualitoy' added. This box clearly mentions four 'shells' with instructions on how to operate the gun on the third side. A large 'Qualitoys' logo was printed on the fourth side but on this box the end-flaps were plain.

 

The early Field Gun models with carriage wheels are easily identified because they included the Benbros name on the shield casting and not hard to find. The later variations with small wheels can be more scarce and the 'shells' are almost always missing.The boxes are also scarce.

 

In the 1960's, the Field Gun with carriage wheels was re-issued in the Zebra Toys range (see Zebra Toys Field Gun)