Red Army Greatcoats

I've been making trips to Seattle for work recently, so on a recent visit I took the opportunity to stop by The Panzer  Depot in the suburb of Kirkland.  It's located in an industrial subdivision, with an unassuming storefront.  Inside is a wargamer's delight with racks and shelves of historical games and miniatures.  The owner was very friendly, and we had a nice chat about different games and products.  I left the shop with a couple of Skirmish Campaigns scenario books (on sale, whoo-hoo!) and some reinforcements for my WWII Red Army.

My intent in building a Red Army is to have a force suitable for Operation Barbarossa. Russian uniforms didn't change too much during the war (there were changes, but for most purposes a wargamers' squint will allow me to use some of the infantry throughout the war).  So my PSC figures are good for the whole conflict.  Where I have a bit of a problem is where equipment changed as newer and better weapons were introduced.  At the start of the war, nearly all the soldiers in an infantry platoon were armed with rifles, whereas I've got a pretty high ratio of submachineguns in my PSC platoon.  That's perfectly suitable for 1942 on, but I need more riflemen for 1941.  Plus, the famous maxim, "quantity has a quality all its own" means that one can never have too many Russian soldiers!

These figures are from Crusader Miniatures.  They are beautiful, clean casts and those greatcoats were easy to paint, especially after mucking around with the camo smocks on those fallschirmjäger!  I chose troops in greatcoats so I'd have the option of fielding them ready for winter, but I've based them with grass flocking so they are consistent with the soldiers I've already painted.  I can always add some snow later if necessary 8^)

Here is the group, 20 figures in total.

Officers

Riflemen, half with their bayonets folded back.  This of course marks them as the 1944 version of the Mosin-Nagant carbine, so renders them anachronistic for Barbarossa, but note my earlier comment about wargamer's squint ;^)

Here are the SMG troops.

And finally the LMG teams, with their DP-27 light machine guns.

Here are some comparison shots with the PSC plastic figures.  As you can see, the Crusaders and the PSC figures are about the same height, and the slightly greater bulk of the Crusaders can be handwaved away because the of the greatcoats.