"Soviet soldier, circa 1939-40" Topic

This is not my work, but I had to link this page of a Soviet soldier model, specifically a junior sergeant, here. I found it today, and it's listed as representative of a Red Army soldier in 1942, although it can easily represent a soldier during the Winter War of 1939-40. The realistic appearance of this figure is somewhat startling, and can serve as a guide to painting wargaming-scale figures:

link

Of the five pics shown, the third and fourth shots look more true to color, while the other three seem to have a noticable greenish tint to them. If you have IrfanView or a similar photo retouching tool, the photo can be corrected.

Outstanding work!

Really good, and the colours are very close to real life.
(Spent two years in such a great coat, you know ;)

Face is excellent and full of life.
Spending two years in such a great coat, you know ;)
The only small thing I'm not sure about, is the colours on an opposite thumb – as far as I remember, the backhand side was also brown.

Can't see the pictures but go here for a view of the winter uniform from this period.

link

And here for the summer

link

Pre and wartime uniforms often were more 'green'. Faded out quickly mind you.

Wahhaaaa! One thing I was told most firmly by one of the wargamers from Moscow, was that there was NO universal shade of Khaki. Oh there was an 'official' one, but each supplier was given lots of leeway to produce volume, rather than quality. That is why in all the black and white photographs we see, the contrast in shade is very obvious, and almost every figure has some variant. The makers worked on making the colour as close to the official shade as dyes permitted. But it was more important to produce the required uniforms than to make sure they all matched.

Apparently as late as the 1970's when he served in the Soviet Army it was still a problem, with many of the regional groups wearing a different shade. So when they came to parade for May Day, in Red Square, he said they sorted through each contingent and placed all the 'same colour' people together. They might be a different shade at the front of a parade group and another at the rear, but the change would be gradual so people would not really notice.

And he said it worked too! The May Day Parades always looked smart. But apparently within the units on a 'normal'basis, there was a rainbow of different Khaki shades.

Considering the great urgency of WW2, you can bet that the variations we see in the photographs, were very common.

Photos from 1989 show varied 'khakis' so it didn't stop in the 70s.The 'Afghanka' looks to have been very close to its prototype colour when new but in use it faded alot due to the sun.

It's simpler than that, the dyes used weren't UV fast. Sun-bleaching your linens has been a recognised way of getting that whiter than white look for centuries. :o)

Add to that the fact that even in the most rigourously controlled industrial production there's variation between dye batches and you get the effect compounded.

One single summer's campaigning would do a lifetime's damage in normal circumstances.

Interesting story, Mal. We here in the West were so preoccupied with the spectre of nuclear war that most of us never caught the uniform color variation while watching parade footage from Red Square on the evening news. Ingeniously crafty how the hierarchy made it look professional.

Fielding a Winter War-era Soviet army seems much more desirable given how the figure's uniform from the link shows this variation in shade of khaki, and your description, Mal. I believe there are a couple of manufacturers that produce figures for 25/28mm Soviets, that being Baker Company and Battle Honors. I think Legions East and, possibly, Peter Pig, produces the same in 15mm.

Frontovik, if you still cant see the pictures, e-mail me, and I can send them to you.

saginaw1@charter.net

When you look at WW2 soviet stuff color is almost an afterthought. There are just so many variations of color. Due to the extreme shoratages of just about everything, they used what they had, and if each batch of cloth was slightly off no one cared.

"When you look at WW2 soviet stuff color is almost an afterthought"

I think this was true of all the countries in WW2. Collector friends of mine assure me that every piece of 'field grey' kit they come across is a different shade. A walk down the clothing aisle of an American Army surplus store will reveal all sorts of different colors, even for stuff produced after the war.

during wartime, close enough to the right color is generally considered to be good enough.

You don't need to go to a surplus store. I recently bought a new black suit at a fine men's shop. I asked if I could get a second pair of pants and they said that they would not match due to differences in the dye lot.

When I painted my Soviet troops, I freely mixed shades within the unit as well as on the individual figure.