"Soviet Guards Armour in the 80s (question)" Topic

Hi
I'm looking at some Cold War era soviets in 15mm.
Specifically 85-88. Could anyone tell me if there Armour was at all in camo or just plain Russian green? Does anyone have a good link to a camo website for both Armour and infantry.

Need help with scemes for the following.
T80
Tunguska
SA9
Pion SPG
MTLB
BMP2

All help much appreciated

Green,

Tally Ho!

In those days, boring green, green, green.

As an image interpreter in the mid 1970s I only saw Green, no camouflage. I left the field in early 80s but followed armour development via JDW until the end of the Cold War. Never saw Soviet vehicles any different.

VR
James Mattes

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One for a fellow Analyst James!

And this chap has been on here (TMP) before, taken by my fair hand in E Berlin between hangovers in 86:

[URL=http://s820.photobucket.com/user/nickdives/media/IMR01.jpg.html]

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Tally Ho!

Lex,

Aside from the colour issue, 2S7 Pion is a bit ambitious for a Guards Tank Division. They were 230mm Army/Front-level long-range counter-battery assets.

At divisional level you'd have 2S1 Gvozdika (122mm) & 2S3 Akatsiya (152mm), or towed D-30 (122mm) & D-20 (152mm) guns.

I never knew the Sovs fielded a giant Toblerone launcher.

Presumably "Nadya s shokoladom" now has as much chocolate as she wants.

All the best,

John.

That reminds me; We had a US Army exchange AFV recognition instructor who had the very effective training method of attaching nicknames to the Russian designations to make them easier to remember. So the IMR combat engineer tractor became 'I Move Rocks' – brilliant! My favourite was the GMZ – 'Great Mine Zonker'.

Some units in the Soviet Union used green and sand camo vehicles from at least the late 80s photos taken in '88 are in Carey Schofields book "Inside the Soviet Army". Units in Afghanistan used camo from '85 at least.

IIRC, there was no "standard" vech. camouflage, neither there was standardised tactical markings. AFAIK Both were organised "per garrison".

Ive seen one picture from Leningrads (nowadays St.Petersburg) armored brigades T-72B from late 1980s (1987 or 88 IIRC), and it was painted to (thin) khaki stripe-camo over plain green.
I have no idea where the picture was from (never seen it after that class – the lieutnant was ambitious soviet militaria collector, wouldnt be suprised if it was from his "personal stash"), but it was included in my instructors diashow featuring different types of russian armor and identification.

Depends. 85 to 87 I was in guard artillery unit, out of your list we only had MTLB-V that were plain green, our neighbors had plain green T-64 and BTR. However, a unit located 20 km away from us had camouflaged T-80. We were not supposed to make your life easier, potential aggressors ;)

I always wondered, if the balloon had gone up, would there have been the appearance of camouflaged Warpac armour?

Thanks for all the answers guys. Think ill go with a mix of camo and plain green. I'm no river counter. Also grabbed a copy of inside the soviet military, hope its good.

Hey Barin were you in Germany or further back in the second third echelon Forces? I had left Europe in the early 80s but would be interesting to compare notes.

VR
James Mattes

i was in the NW part of Russia, 14 km from Finnish border and ca 100 km North from S-Petersburg.
we were supposed to cover the border in case of conflict escalation, on the drills our potential enemy was supposed to be mobile/paratrooper forces from USA and Canada….

nickinsomerset These look like T64 but could be early T80.

Nick,
Not sure what that is (initially thought it was a Tank Recovery Vehicle) it looks like it is based on the T-55 chassis. Possibly an IMR engineering vehicle?

VR
James Mattes

Yes, IMR ('I Move Rocks') :)

IMR, nothing on it to pinch! And T-80 in the top phot, single large snorkel best spot. The unit had just changed from T-64,

Tally Ho!