Workers and Peasants: WWII Soviet Infantry in 28mm

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This week, I finished up the rest of my Soviets, giving me a full four-squad platoon to go along with my three-squad (for now) winter Soviet platoon. Always more, more, more with these Red Army types, isn't it?

This marks the end* of a rather large project for me. As with the winter Soviets, many of these figures have been hanging around unpainted or poorly painted since I got into the hobby several years ago. It feels good to see them done, and as my main interest right now is the Eastern Front, this means most of the infantry for one side is done. And my Germans only need basing, which I have been putting off for quite a while.
* okay, so there will be some more support options to come... always more
I am thinking of finding a more expressive figure for the platoon leader, but this fellow will do for now. Like all of these figures, he is made from the Warlord Games plastic Soviets.
These squads are all laid out the same for Chain of Command - a Junior Leader with submachine gun, a two-man DP-27 light machine gun crew, and eight riflemen.

I've also made some support options, of course. Some of these have been painted for a while, but they're all the same project, so it feels appropriate to show them off here. Starting with a sniper and two men with SVT-40 semi-automatic rifles. There would be no problem with giving SVT-40s to the regular infantry as well, but some CoC lists add the option to buy semi-auto rifles as support, so I thought it might be prudent to distinguish between the figures. I'm partial to the SVT-40 as a design, so I like having them. I even have a German figure with a captured one, which was a common sight during the war.

A PTRD-41 team for poking holes in the side of pesky German panzers. I appreciate that even at this small scale, the thing is so massive that the muzzle is out of focus when the camera focuses on the gunner's head.
The ever-useful Maxim medium machine gun. I've got a soft spot for these water-cooled beasts as well, and suspect I will end up with another just for good measure. This is the Warlord Games metal model with a mixture of crew figures. I base my support gun crews on smaller 20mm bases and only base two figures with the weapon. This helps me keep track of casualties and just looks better to me, for whatever reason. The two extra crew on the left are Plastic Soldier Company and the one on the right is a Warlord metal crewman from a mortar team I don't use.
Speaking of Plastic Soldier Company, here's their 45mm anti-tank gun. This is the 1937 configuration, not the M-42 with the slightly longer barrel that the kit can also make. I guess that means I need another one.
I have always heard that this odd 28mm kit was scaled up from PSC's smaller offerings. The gun is very nice, far better than any Warlord metal kit, but the figures are a little soft on detail. I supplement them with more Warlord metal crewmen.
Finally, a few spare crewmen. I have a M1927 76mm gun in the works, so maybe they'll crew that someday. More Warlord metals, except the guy on the right end, who is a rather pale-looking Warlord plastic.
The completion of the infantry platoon, coincidentally brings me to 180 figures painted for the year. I'm trying to hit 200, at least, so we'll see how that goes.

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