In 1937 the Lineol and Hausser sales catalogues showed for the first time a new type of figure which aimed to enhance the toy armies. Both manufacturers offered three different type of shooting toy soldiers with a special feature: they could actually fire their weapons. There was not only a bang, there was also a little bullet which launched from the end of the gun barrel. The mechanism was quite simple. The barrel of the rifle was made of a small metal tube and the firing mechanism was hidden within the knapsack. This had a little spring and could be fired off with a trigger. The whole mechanism works very similar to a real rifle. The "bullet" was a small wooden sick, about 5 mm long and the charge was similar to what is used nowadays in toy pistols.