Recently we've had a departure from outer space to inner space with a rolling topic of submarines and frogmen, now i'd like to return to the sea to show this wonder of the high seas, the Topper Task Force!Ive just recently scored this amazing set of three ships on ebay, the USS Battlewagon, Destroyer and Motor Patrol Boat. The three boats date from about 1963 and arrive in amazing shape. There were one or two small omissions and a little damage, the original searchlight and landing craft were missing, plus a radar scanner from the patrol boat and the base of the target float. Im in the middle of fully restoring these wonderful toys, but felt I had to share them at this point as they are closely related to the Topper Cape Canaveral Rocket Base.
The large white missiles on the back of the battlewagon are the same as the Nike Hercules rockets from the Cape set, apart from these ones have red nose cones instead of black. I had only previously seen the Task Force set (destroyer, MPB and target float) in a Hobbies catalogue along with the Johnny Seven, Jungle Jack, Fire Chief and Canaveral sets and I naturally assumed they were to scale with each other. The figures from the boats are about 1.5 inches high, about 2/3 the size of the standard 1.72 scale soldiers in the Cape set. The Battlewagon takes four batteries and trundles along, bell ringing and searchlight seeking out enemy subs. The big cannons come with large shells and theres a triple torpedo launcher at the back. Beside the early cruise missiles is a jet catapult for launching the delta wing jets!
The Destroyer has a large naval cannon firing silver shells and a depth charge launcher at the back. The Motor patrol boat has a large missile at the ready too. As previously pointed out by Philosophic Toad, Deluxe Reading moved production of Topper toys to England in the early sixties and lucky for us, brought amazing toys like this and the Johnny seven into our homes. The USS Battlewagon is a huge toy, nearly three feet long and must have made someones Xmas very special over forty years ago - I know its made my year just now!
Please don't tell me you'll be testing them in the bath! The evil Rubber Ducks Army doesn't stand a chance!
ReplyDeleteJust discovered your website; tons o'fun!
ReplyDeleteI had a Battlewagon as a child. It came with a bag of talc powder you would load into the bottom three cannons on the turret to make a "smoke" effect when you fired the shells. Nobody's mom thot that was a good idea!