In regards to the percentage of the RKKA that were women, it's worth remembering that they weren't subject to conscription as men were. Volunteers all, and that may have translated to an above average quality in arms.
Suggestions For New Soviet Kits
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@Mark Dewis
Fair point. You can train anything except intestinal fortitude and motivation.
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As a HUGE fan of everything Soviet, I'd say there are fourkits that would be awesome to have, in decreasing order of necessity.
1) Late War Soviets. M43 uniforms, with wide shoulder boards and standing collars. Warlord's offering only has early war M35 kit, and Wargames Factory's offering is... bleh. Rigid poses, grossly underdetailed weapons (I've seen 20mm stuff that looked better), wildly incorrect shovels, and extremely flat details like rifle ammunition pouches and tent halves.
That's why we badly need a good looking set of plastic Late War Soviets. PPS-43s (nobody does these!), correct equipment, and dynamic poses displaying some variation, like jackboots and low boots with puttees. Massive bonus points for Polish rogatywka hats to make East Front Poles, and/or Kalashnikovs and RPDs for 50s-60s Soviets.
2) Soviet Cavalry. Regular uniform bodies, standard Soviet (side cap, helmet) and Cossack heads, so that you can do both usual and Cossack units.
The only ways to do WW2 Red Cavalry right now are a) flimsy 3D printed Cossacks that break when you look at them the wrong way, b) extremely expensive metal Mongols or Russian Civil War cavalrymen that you have to touch up, or c) long conversions of ACW cavalry that require you to chop up two boxes' worth of troops. Plastic Soviet cavalry would be a dream come true.
3) Eastern European Partisans. Some bearded guys, some winter caps, some women, maybe a teenager, and a more rustic look than the French Partisans with their fancy scarves. Perfect not only for Soviet partisans, but also for the Yugoslavs - both Tito's and Chetniks with the right heads - and even for Poles in Warsaw if you throw in a pair of heads in German Stahlhelms.
4) Soviet support weapon teams. Basically what PSC tried to do, but better. (to their defense, their heavy weapon teams are scaled up 15mm stuff, and look fine in that scale). More variation in poses would be needed, so that you don't end up with clones. Maybe more weapon options, too ? Like a SG-43 machine gun, an Ampulomet or things like that.
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@Paul Cziganj
Can't argue with the "order of merit" list.
Reference "1" the M43 uniform kit... I don't think one even needs to mention the drawbacks of the Wargames Factory kit as it's long out of production. There's a total of two boxes on Ebay right now.
Reference "4" I agree plastic is the way to go for heavy weapons. I'm still a big fan of metal Infantry miniatures but metal heavy weapons suck. The concept of the PSC kit but better is dead on.
Possibly interesting to you:
https://wargamesatlantic.com/community/xenforum/topic/45824/panzer-lehr-expansion-set-panzerschreck
I do still think the Cossack kit, Naval Infantry, Female, and "Amoeba" suit kits have a lot of merit. All of those kits fill important niches in WW2 and additional have the ability to be used in other time periods as well.
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Thoughts on a Russo-Japanese War to WW2 Cossack cavalry kit:
https://wargamesatlantic.com/community/xenforum/topic/58950/ww1ww2-cossack-cavalry
Discussion on a WW1/WW2 Naval Infantry kit:
https://wargamesatlantic.com/community/xenforum/topic/45912/suggestions-for-new-great-war-releases
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Kit idea number 7 was Soldiers in body armor:
I recently received these printed miniatures and I'm more enthused with the idea than ever.
Look how cool these guys are.
(Left most miniature is WGA German sentry for scale.)
Got them from:
Good transaction.
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@JTam A lot to be said for some new plastic Soviets with body armor... but those resin minis look good too!
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@JTam Assault engineers in 28mm would be nice! As far as i know, the only plastic soviet AE around are those from the DUST boardgame... wich are much too tall.
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So I've seen this photo many times..... but never knew who she was.
(Note the M35 blouse, subdued collar tabs, and early rifle scope combo. Based on how early in the war this was, I always assumed she must have been killed in action before its conclusion.)
But I found this post today:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/813439989109195/permalink/1500330350420152/
Looks to be possibly post war. Maybe a "happy" ending? Is that "8 March" at the upper left? Maybe she's speaking at the local grade school on International Women's Day about stacking bodies.
Probably a Guards Badge and Expert Sniper badge on the right breast. Looks like wound badges below them. I need to check my references on the left side medal.
I think that's Junior Lieutenant rank on her shoulders. Picked up a commission somewhere along the line.
(Note: Her name, unit, and kills, are from the internet..... I can neither confirm or deny the accuracy.)
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Eh, on one hand, these 3D printed soldiers are great and give you lots of options, but on the other hand, they're excessively flimsy: even in foam trays, they often break (especially their guns).
Plus, you lose all of the fun of assembling your troops !
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@Paul Cziganj
These are my first 3D printed miniatures. I wasn't aware how fragile they were. But forewarned is forearmed. Thank You.
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On preorder at Osprey:
That central figure is amazing. Amoeba pants, PPS43, and tenashka. Very similar uniform to this female medic:
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Also on preorder at Osprey:
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@Mark Dewis
Don't you have a particular interest in this fight?
Brand new:
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@JTam that I do! I'll look that up. David M. Glantz's book is the main work on it; as long as this isn't too derivative of that it should be good. Seems to mostly be told from the German viewpoint, which is enough of a shift from Glantz to be worth it.
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@JTam This is definitely under represented considering the numbers who were in action. I am not aware of any plastic models for cavalry and only a handful of metal ones.
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@Justin Baines
I'm not aware of ANY plastic WW2 (or WW1 cavalry for that matter) either.
Considering WW2 is the dominant historical gaming era it's a little strange (at least to me).
Welcome to the forum.
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Given that cavalry units were used ,principally by the russians, and also, at least at the start, by Axis' forces, perhaps a conversions' set could be useful, either in plastic or STL.
Another theatre were mounted forces were used, by either combatants, was Yugoslavia, but it isn't a very popular choice, given the viciousity of the fight btw not only Axis' forces and allies, but also for the infighting btw partisans of different ideology.
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@Alessio De Carolis
Are you suggesting a plastic Soviet Cavalry kit, and conversion sprues/STLs to convert them to other Nations cavalry?
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@JTam That would be a grand idea !
The cavalry kit itself could perfectly cover the 1905 to 1945 period (Russo-Japanese War, WW1, Russian Civil War, WW2) with the right choice of heads. Short Mosin carbines, Nagant revolvers and Shashka cossack swords would remain the same.
Just throw in a couple PPSh-41s, heads in helmets and in "small" Kubanka hats for WW2, bigger and fluffier fur hats for everything Imperial Russians (or even for the Czechoslovak Legion !), and Budenovka hats for the Reds in the Civil War, and you're good to go for 40 years of Eastern European horse-mounted awesomeness.
And then, a couple well-aimed WA Digital sets would allow them to become fine German collaborationist Cossacks, or Cossacks in traditional garments instead of the Russian/Soviet riding breeches and standing collar shirt. These could then be used as WW1 Russians, WW2 Soviets or White-aligned Cossacks for the Russian Civil War.
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@Paul Cziganj
Preach Brother.
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@Paul Cziganj
Didn't you mention come converting a plastic female gun slinger to a Soviet Soldier previously? Please post pics if you get a chance, would love to see how that turned out.
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The Naval Brigade hats aren't terribly different to the Prussian Reserve caps with the brim removed. If you stuck those on 28mm plastic Russian infantry and added some neckcloths with putty you could get fairly close.
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@Mark Dewis Not a bad suggestion for kit bashing Soviet Naval Infantry but I still think a full plastic set would sell well.
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@Grumpy Gnome Oh yeah. I'm a bit surprised that Warlord haven't done a sprue yet.
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@Mark Dewis I was really surprised when Warlord said their new WW2 Italian Marines would be in metal instead of plastic. And yes, I certainly would have expected Soviet Naval Infantry in plastic by now. I would have thought they would proxy well as some sort of 40k Imperial Navy troops.
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There's an "international sailor" look that was almost universal in the 19th and early 20th C that would make a good kit. You could likely make it so that various national small arms would be all that was needed to cover many nations.
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Was fortunate enough to come across a T-26 displayed in Instanbul, Turkey.
A very historically significant vehicle. The Soviets fielded over 10,000 T-26s at the start of Barbarossa. Massive numbers were consequently destroyed but survivors would continue to fight (generally in more isolated areas) all the way to 1945. T-26s also fought in the Spanish Civil War (where it was easily the best tank in theater), Khalkin Gol, and Finland among other places.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/tanks-encyclopedia.com/ww2/soviet/soviet_t26.php%3famp
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I really like the quirky look of some Interwar and Early WW2 armored vehicles, such as the Soviet T-26.
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@Grumpy Gnome
Concur. The interwar/early war tanks defiantly have their charm. I really like the 38t for some reason.
People tend to dismiss the T-26 as obsolete in 1941 but from a technical viewpoint it was a decent match for anything the Germans had at the time.
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I quite like the 38t too.
And I quite like the various early WW2 tanks multi-turret tanks. Perhaps in part thanks to Humphrey Bogart (Sahara).
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T-26's were prominent in the pre-war Soviet-Japanese fighting. I think there were even some surviving for the brief 1945 war.
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T-26's would also be super useful for Finnish troop kits.. they were the main tank the soviets used in the winter war, and finland captured a fair number of them over the course of it. and during the continuation war (the finnish portion of ww2, agaisnt the soviets) tthey formed the bulk of the Finnish armor units, despite the finns getting some Nazi tanks through their alliance and capturing some newer soviet ones in the fighting.
the WGA tries for a T-26 tank kit, i'd suggest making sure that you could build the KhT-133 flamethrower variant as well as the standard 45mm gun. those were the two most common versions, and the flamethrower version has crossover potential for scifi and weird war rulesets. since it should be basically a weapon swap, it shouldn't be that hard.
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@JTam totally. It's overshadowed by the tanks the Germans had trouble knocking out (i.e. KV and T-34), but I'd not like to be a PzIV crew faced by two or three of them.
China purchased some and used them against the invading Japanese. Somewhat ironically, given postwar events when the tanks were used in the civil war against the Chionese Communist forces, they were trained up to use them by the Soviets. Turkey bought some as well, but I don't think those saw combat.
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North Star just posted a new painting guide featuring Soviet scouts in amoeba suits:
http://nstarmagazine.com/artizan_6_painting_soviets.htm
Speaking of amoeba suits:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/187723543109221/permalink/659942092554028/?flite=scwspnss
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