1964; [WWII] Russian Infantry, S17 / 01717 / 01717-4 - HO/OO

Still needs proper text etc...

OBE's; A least one is doing service as a souave or 1914 Frenchman? Another red rule (see 1st type US Marines and Civilians), this time it seems to be; Soviet Commissars or political officers have bright-red jackets! And what's happening with the silver guy? Fighting Giant astronauts or aliens on Planet zb445227-b in sector 5, quadrant six, outer rim, I'll be betting!

Montaplex piracies, there was the usual figure set, but these two poses were also included in this seperate bagged truck from the 'vehicle' range. The truck's artwork is trying to be a Canadian Military Pattern (CMP), but the model itself is looking suspiciously like a post-war, early variant of Mercedes Unimog, probably pirated from Roco, Roskopf or EKO (themselves copies of the other two!) I would imagine.

 Clearly copies; they are a good milimeter-and-a-half or two milimeters shorter, their feet in the mud and the detail sparse. The shot is not helped by the poor-quality Airfix figure on the left, a shrinkage figure, I didn't notice his blobby chest when taking the photograph!

 1980 Catalogue Image

In the mid-'70's userpers appeared, they looked so cool in the box but were a major disapointment once they were out of the box! In the above image the earlier box is the lower one, the H&F panel being added quite soon after these sets came out.

Thanks to Kostas for the 1975 catalogue scans this collage is created from. The first appearance of the the white 'corner' boxes, I think

Blog-reader Chris Smith - who some of you may know as a bit of an expert on this ex-soviet stuff - sent these to the Blog as a donation, just before Christmas (2018) which was very kind; thank you Chris.

They were obtained from Hungary and may well be from there rather than the 'Russian' that all this stuff tends to get labelled with. The figures however don't really conform to any recognisable East-Bloc or Warsaw Pact force, and are best described as generic 'army men'.

However the officer/commissar on horseback with sword and the heavy machine-gun (more of a light anti-tank gun!) are clear references to soviet types, so this is where they belong for comparison purposes! The MG/Gun seems based on a known, larger (30mm) Russian flat though, however these are semi-flat and - as you can see - around the 1:76th-1:72nd mark.