I noticed this pretty much as soon as I started playing with the toy, but I keep forgetting to mention it on the board -- this mould is a retooled hybrid between the Sideswipe and Sunstreaker moulds. On one hand it has Sideswipe's body because of the head and hand positions, but it also has Sunstreaker's shoulder joints - as in, the hole where you would place the gun on Sideswipe to make it a shoulder-mounted weapon.

I discovered this when I tried to place Red Alert's gun onto his shoulder, but of course, it wouldn't fit. At first I thought maybe it was mould degradation, but then I realised that I'd never tried putting Sunstreaker's gun on his shoulder either (since G1 Sunstreaker doesn't have a mounted gun like that) - so I tried putting my Henkei Sunstreaker's gun onto his shoulder and lo and behold it wouldn't fit! I then tried putting Red Alert's gun onto Sideswipe's shoulder, and it fitted. Then I tried putting Sideswipe's gun onto Red Alert's shoulder and it wouldn't fit and so on.

So it seems that Red Alert is a retooled (cos of the strobe lights) of a hybrid cross between Sideswipe and Sunstreaker! How odd though... it makes no sense to me. Wouldn't it be easier to do a straight repaint of Sideswipe? (t'would make more sense too considering that it would make the toy a better G1 homage if the gun could be shoulder mounted).

What about Henkei Alert... can his gun be shoulder mounted?