1:32 Russian Infantry (WWII)

A Red Army rifleman

The basic unit of Soviet infantry was the rifle company, and within it the squad built around the light machine gun. The war changed the look of this soldier several times: in 1941 he went into battle in a shirt-style tunic without shoulder boards and with a long bolt-action rifle; in 1943 he gained shoulder boards, which the army reintroduced after a quarter of a century, and submachine guns joined the squad in such numbers that whole companies went into the attack with nothing else. That transformation is useful to a builder, because it allows a scene to be placed reliably in time.

Equipment that is easy to recognize

Characteristic features are the helmet with a smooth bowl and a low ridge, canvas bandoliers for ammunition, a round canteen and the shelter cape rolled into a horseshoe over the shoulder. It is that rolled cape that tends to be the most conspicuous element on the figures, and in painting it pays to set it apart in shade from the tunic, otherwise it merges into one undifferentiated mass. The footwear came in two forms, high boots or low shoes with puttees, and both met within a single platoon.

Painting without a template

Soviet cloth had no uniform tone. Wartime production varied from gray-green to a greenish khaki, and both extremes commonly met within a single platoon. That can be used in a scene: give every figure a differently mixed base and the group at once stops looking like a production casting. Keep the skin in one tone, on the other hand, or the scene falls apart. The weapons will stand a uniform treatment: the wood of the stock in a warm brown, the metal dark and without gloss.