"Patriotic slogans on Soviet tanks" Topic

How widespreadwas the practice?

I know that Battlefront has decals, but does anyone else?

Is there a site with more slogans, for those who would like to take a shot at hand painting them?

I think the most popular was:

Я останавливаю для девушки Казаха

along with the cautionary:

призывник на борту

I forgot one:

мой другой автомобиль трактор людей

Barmy Flutterz – LOL!

Hi John

email me and I will send you a article on the subject.

luisito@sympatico.ca

Email sent.

Barmy, my hamster does not smell of elderberries!
Nor, is my hovercraft full of eels.

Just sorting some slogan decals now (15mm)…. Kazak girls are nice, but "мой другой автомобиль трактор людей" is very tempting :-D

Well it's a pity john, I guess we'll have to repaint your tank then. Possibly the hovercraft too.

It's tempting to produce 2 packs, one with actual slogans and one with joke sentences.

Anyone fancy "Don't follow me, I'm lost" in Russian?

Geoff, how about some Trotskyite slogans? "I would like a word with you, Comrade…"

"Well, Ukraine girls really knock me out
They leave the west behind."

"Well, Ukraine girls really knock me out"

My wife is out there at the moment. Her grandfather has an original Zundapp KS750, complete with sidecar (he's taken the gun fitting out – I showed her a re-enactor's version to check I was thinking of the right thing. "Yes", she says, "but they have the gun mount fitted wrong on that bike"). lol. Good girl has taken me photos all round. :-)

Sorry, but the following:

Я останавливаю для девушки Казаха

мой другой автомобиль трактор людей

are meaningless in Russian. They must have been been translated back and forth many times for the slogans to lose their meaning. In their current form, they are just a collection of Rusian words thrown together.

Well I understood them :-D

These are the translations babelfish gave me:

The first is:
I stop for the girl of the Kazakh

and the second is:
My another automobile is the tractor of the people.

I get the general meaning of them.

And after I spent all that money on those translators!

For some reason I don't get cyrillic script to show correctly (and I'm in Russia for Pete's sake!), but I think 'moja drugaja mashina traktor naroda' would be somewhat more idiomatic.

And I've applied 'fun' slogans on some cavalry banners some years ago. Don't remember them though, so I guess they weren't that funny.

My favourite is a White Russian armoured train with "please could you direct me to the first class dining car?"

If those are what you want (however non-historical), you should try these:

"I stop for the girl of the Kazakh"

Останавливаюсь ради казахских девушек

and the second is:
"My another automobile is the tractor of the people"

Моя другая машина – народный трактор

Some fun with an online translator – translation.langenberg.com – no idea how accurate it is compared to a proper translation.

Я затыкать для водка (I stop for vodka)

не надо следовать Я быть потерявший (Don't follow, I'm lost)

It would be interesting to see how well it did.

Absurd. Here's the real deal:

"I stop for vodka"

Останавливаюсь ради водки.

"Don't follow, I'm lost"

Не следуйте за мной – я заблудился.

Online translators are never good (I tend to use Promt) but you get the general meaning from them… most of the time. Always made for an entertaining evening in the early days when my wife and I wanted/needed to have a serious conversation, before her English got better than mine :-D

I often used to try and plug Italian into those online translators with mixed results. The mix was two parts dreadful and three parts terrible.

Although not everyone in this thread may agree with me, I'm actually rather impressed with how well the Russian did, I would have expected much worse. I mean it might not be the Czar's Russian, but it's not so far off from the basic idea.

If you don't like that, just don't even consider looking at Italian, you'll want to gouge your eyes with penne it's so disjointed.

I've used online translators for Russian and French, and been left horribly dis-satisfied both times. Now I know enough Russian to get into trouble, and my wife knows enough French to make the translators useful.

I got to see the Rostov armor museum many years ago, but alas, we were in Rostov for other reasons and I didn't get to spend time getting my translator to tell me all that it meant. Pretty much, I got to look at the tanks outside and that's it. Or that was the Taganrog tractor works, I forget which, it's been a decade.

As to how widespread, after the first crushing defeats they were common, but during the opening stages of Barbarossa, they were not used at all.

For me, I named two 1:100th T-70s "Gala" and "Vika", after my (Russian) daughters. Not as if your average American has a clue what the Cyrillic means. As they grew, I replaced the T-70s with a T-34 and a KV-1 :-). They don't like wargaming, but love "their" tanks and will watch any game they're in, assuming they're around (they're older now, and not often around).

Don.

"it might not be the Czar's Russian, but it's not so far off from the basic idea."

Errr… NO. In these particular examples, it is VERY FAR from the basic idea.

I got a translation that was close enough to understand

to be honest, why don't you just write some likely looking cyrillic script on the the side of your tanks….I mean, who the hell is going to know?….and when some finally sees your stuff and goes "Blah, blah, blah…not Russian blah , blah blah" You simply say
"I know"

Because we're wargamers and it either has to be correct, or we have to know the in-joke is correct ;-)

Imperial Forge, where'd you learn proper russian? I speak russian better than my wife speaks english. They usually understand me when I'm speaking even though I mangle the grammar somewhat. I hate hearing my accent on video. I can write but then I mangle the grammar and the spelling. I tend to use my dictionary instead of electronic translators now but I did use them several years ago. Good for giving the people I was writing to a laugh.

За Сталину seems to be popular at least in the rulebooks.
За денги or За квартиру fits my russian friends better.

The GM how does your daughter like being compared to a KV? I hope there's not a huge resemblance. Of course I have an aunt that could be a t-26.

That was supposed to be T-35. Don't why typed the other.

Zinkala – she was pregnant at the time (she's nearly 20 now, my how time flies)… So it was a fun joke. :-)

Then she made me a Grandpa, and she got to joke :-(.

Don.

I have to agree with Imperial Forge, those phrases are meaningless jumble of words. Imperial Forge correctly translated possible meaning of those slogans, but I doubt very much that something like that was written on Soviet tanks. In fact, at first I thought it was a joke. Russian language spoken today is virtually unchanged from the language of Pushkin (1830's?) or Leo Tolstoy (1870's?). You'll be better off with basic "For Stalin" or "For Motherland" or 'From workers of Putilov factory" or from "From workers of kolhoz Zarya". Sorry, I do not have Russian letters on my computer.

Igor

'At first' you thought it was a joke? Only at first?

I wonder what happened on this thread to make a babel fish translation of "I stop for Girl of the Khazak" start getting taken as a serious suggestion.

Look, everyone knows that "I stop for Khazak girls" is a perfectly reasonable thing to write on a tank, but that bad grammar is historically inaccurate….

I think i know what I'm talking about here, 'Red Heat' was on cable just the other day and I watched nearly twenty minutes of it.

Well, well, well… :-))
This Babelfish thing is reaching truly nonsensical proportions.

If "I stop for vodka" gets translated as "Я затыкать для водка", why not use the same approach for "I stop for the girl of the Kazakh". In that case you get:

"Я затыкаю девушку казаха", which translates as,

"I plug the girl of a Kazakh" (the girl of a single, particular kazakh)

Good luck explaining that one to your Russian gaming mates…

Sigh.

Yes, it was a joke. We know they never wrote "my other tank is a tractor" on their tanks. We also know that online translators do a horrible job of mangling the language. They generally work sufficiently well to be able to understand the meaning, to get the joke.

If I was to produce a series of joke slogans, I'd get my (Ukrainian) wife to write them out for me, so the grammar is correct (she speaks Russian and Ukrainian, to a high grammar standard)

To return to John's original post:

How widespread was it?
It seems to have been quite common, either painted by the relevant group of workers, collective group or village who produced them, or hand-painted by the crews themselves.

Who else does them?
Have you tried Skytrex? I don't know if they do, but I know they also produce a range of 15mm decals. I-94 also do some, code RU-107. I'm just drawing some up for production later this year.

Is there a site with more slogans?
Not that I'm aware of, I've done a variety of Google image searches ans have a collection of books that I work from.

Geoff
quickreactionforce.co.uk

Actually, I will add that one thing I have noticed in common is generally how rough the writing is. These things are clearly hand painted by whoever was best in the group.

There's apost in the FoW Research forum about tank slogans
link

Ok, i have another one:

наша стрельба более хороша чем наша грамматика

While not quite a hijacking, this thread was certaily running off the rails for quite a few miles.
And yet… I did get some useful information from it.

I still want something Trotskyite.

I once asked an eminent archaeologist (eminent in wargaming circles anyway) if the ancient texts, whether ceneiform or heiroglyphics, ever had things that were "misspelled". He told me "Oh, yeah. All the time."

I just had to join in.

Берлин или Перебор!

I Have a copy of the Airfix magazine guide 22, Russian tanks of WWII, 1977. It has some groovy examples, like 'Onwards to the west!' and 'to the front for the rout of Fasicism!' I'm sure, however, that this little gem is long out of print!. I could scan it in and send you it, or get busy on the cyrillic fonts!

John

I have a 'Crush the Fascist Occupiers' poster on the wall of my office (in cyrillic), decorated with pretty pictures of T34s and jut jawed heroes of the Soviet Union.

Wouldn't fancy painting that lot on a 15mm T34 turret though.

I was actually curious about Imperial Forges russian connections, not trying to say that he wasn't correct. If we have to be serious here's a couple more.

За победу!
За родину!
Толька перед!

Less serious
Я тормозу за чики!
Я с танкам оба идем на самогоне.
Иди на хуй – Фашист.

Sadly my live in russian interpretor is back home taking care of business so I have to rely on my own warped version of the russian language.

Смерть к фашистам – Death to fascists

"I was actually curious about Imperial Forges russian connections"

Went to school over there.

BTW, Zinkala, the last of the "less serious" slogans you put in Russian is jsut extremely rude. One does not use that kind of language. Really bad form, even for a much-hated enemy. It is something from a lowlife street gang slang, not a more ennobled sentiment you put on a tank.

"За победу!" was actually a toast. "Вперед к победе" sounds more like it. Sorry, but "Толька перед!" is nonsense. You managed to make 2 mistakes in 2 words… :-)) And it is incorrect stylistically. "Вперед!" would suffice.

Stuart,

"Смерть фашистам!" is the correct form. Or,

"Смерть фашистским оккупантам!" Or,

"Смерть фашистским захватчикам!"

Guys, you make me consider making a line of proper Russian decals in addition to my existing line. I was never into WWII, but now I would definitely dread seeing some of the "Russian" tanks out there, LOL… :-))

Do it Imperial Forge.

My problem with Russian turret slogans GeoffQRF already pointed out. So many are obviously done with chalk, or in a hurry, or by someone who failed to plan ahead how much room he was going to need.

I suspect I am going to have to hand-paint them.

Pat

Putting the debate about serious/comedic/anachronistic content aside, you can paint the slogans on using one of those "Milky Markers" which is a rollerball pen with white ink.

If/when I start painting slogans on my tank hordes, there'll be a "If you can read this, you're too close" and "Bang! You're Dead" to go with the "Death to Fascists", "For the Motherland!" and etc. I'll just have to decide whether to lay them out myself, or write each one by hand.

Wyatt

I just got some Sturmoviks, and a quick Google Image search showed that they can be graphically festoned patriotically also.

Imperial Forge, thanks for letting me know and I'm not surprised that I made errors. Sorry about that last one. I actually knew all of the connotations of that. I've spent about 2 years living in Russia and have picked up some things I shouldn't have. I have exactly 2 weeks of formal russian training at ДВГУ and about 6 years of dealing with russians in business and personal things. Believe me I rely on my wife or another interpretor heavily when I'm dealing business and I don't joke around. Now if you could ever get me to understand the proper usage of perfective and imperfective forms in russian grammar I'd be eternally grateful.

The line of decals might not be a bad idea.