"Summer and Winter clothing - Russian, German, British." Topic

I am currently building a WW2 Russian company in 28mm and have noticed that figures come in both summer and winter clothing. It's the same with their German opponents. Manufacturers do a variety of summer and winter variants. I'm gaming from 1943 onwards and three quarters of my Russian figures are in summer uniform,however, I do like the quilted uniforms and would like to add those in to the mix. What do you tend to do if you aren't gaming a specific period of the war? Mix the clothing? Stick to summer/winter clothed figures only?
While I am on the subject, the group I am with also games the late 44, early 45 operations in western europe (the Scheldt etc) which tend to be wet weather, winter type battles. We cannot, however, find any British figures in leather jerkins which I understood were fairly common in this period. We can obtain Germans in any variant of winter clothing we would like. Greatcoats, smocks, parkas, onesies….. but British infantry in leather jerkins appear to be non existent. It's not much to ask. Just 5 on a sprue from a box of 30 plastic British would do!Happy to be corrected and pointed in the right direction though!

Gerard
Barely Legal Wargamers

Gerard,

I'm a 20mm Eastern Front gamer and have approached this by first off studying as many period photos of the troops in the campaign/battle I am gaming for a guide. My general rule is as follows: Summer battles naturally I go with summer uniform so Red Army M43 Gymnasterka tunics with a few of the older collared ones and Pilotka side caps and helmets. For Germans go for usual uniforms so that'd be M43 (open collar) with a mix of older M36 (dark stand up collars) helmets and m43 peaked field caps with some of the M42 older type side caps. Smocks for SS and some Wehrmacht units and some zeltbahns would be good to mix it up. For winter I have Red Army in a mix of padded uniforms and greatcoats with ushanka hats and helmets. Similar for my Germans (with parkas for SS). For Spring and Autumn I would go predominantly for the winter look with a few summer mixed in. You can always paint hands in a grey/brown to represent gloves as well. If you look at photos of Berlin, the Red Army soldiers are in a mix of everything. I'm sure I read somewhere that the Red Army winter uniforms were collected up in May but don't take that as gospel. For both Red Army and Germans variety is the key and also the spice of life!
For your Brits late on the camouflage windproof set was issued in greater numbers and worn over battledress. Good luck with trying to find the right figures in leather jerkins though – of course in 20mm you can get them all!

Hope that helps
Andy

Gerard, I would like to see some British in leather jerkins as well. We play spring, summer, fall weather games mostly. I like the figures in Russian winter clothing so just mix a few in. For other nationalities, I use mainly the summer clothing, or at least avoid the greatcoats, other than an occasional officer.

Excellent information. Thank you for the comprehensive reply Andy.
condotta: I may well see if Warlord are open to a request to produce British in leather jerkins. Couldn't harm to try!

Unfortunate for your purposes that these figures have the old-style respirator bags on the chest: link On the face of it, it would be easy for Gorgon to produce some without the early war respirators. Maybe you could email them.

It's kind of amazing there aren't 28mm Soviets in greatcoats.

Thanks for the link Jeff. They are nice figures. I may ask if they could adapt a few for late war.
Russians in greatcoats would be useful. I'm also surprised there aren't a few included with the Warlord games sets.

Aren't Revell's WW2 British wearing jerkins, and Mk III helmets?

I tend to do most of my guys in their normal wool uniforms as they are good for the vast majority of the year.

Germans only really wore tropical uniforms in deserty places, as did the British although my figures for Italy also feature a lot of rolled up sleeves.

Sovs tend to be the exception really, but even then the 'summer' uniforms come in different weights and the heavier weight ones are really quite warm. The padded jackets look cool but are incredibly hot to wear.

So again, my Sovs all get 'summer' uniforms, as they are good for most things.

One day I might get around to painting some special winter figures, but I haven't so far:)

It's kind of amazing there aren't 28mm Soviets in greatcoats.

Old Glory/Westwind does them: link

I've done a headswap on some of them to use as Royal Norwegian Army.