G is for Great Patriotic Wartoys!

Really just the dregs of some recent purchases, with scan of an old photograph I took back in the 1990's to illustrate a couple more poses. Like the Chapayevtsi cavalry we looked at back in October last year, these could be from the same Russian factory or several different manufacturer's across the Soviet bloc?

On the left is a group of artillery, all from one source, with a field gun/howitzer at the bottom, an anti-tank gun in the middle and a large (regimental level?) mortar at the top, various crew are busy helping 1 Gloster's keep their heads down, with - the inset (lower right) scan from years ago - showing the flag that the waving guy is supposed to have, but which is so often missing.

The scan also shows some more infantry-looking types and a mounted officer/recce-type with binoculars, above them is an armed cavalryman in two colours, and two slightly different sizes, which might be due to different batches, different factories or different cavities in the same mould.

Similar to the above (and usually coming with them) are the T34's and Katyusha's. These are very different if you study them with the darker Stalin's organ being a much cruder version with a smaller gap between cab and firing platform and a simpler front-bumper (fender).

Likewise all three tanks are slightly different with the nearest having a straight-backed turret which is more KV-looking, the middle one having a sloped-rear but the same barrel, and the far one having a steeper slope and new mantlet with less elevation. As with the cavalry, bases vary with all three, although it's not so obvious

This chap is definitely from another set/source, he's smaller (25mm to the others 35/40mil) and more infantile, he's also less common than the above set/s which is/are quite easy to find, his base is also very different with it's flat-sided oblong and sharp corners! Look's like someone gave an PPSh to that execrable robot from Buck Rogers in the 25th Century...Weeble? Wikitunt? Dweedle? You know! I could Google it - but then I'd have to kill myself!

These naval guys seem to accompany the army troops above (perhaps in bigger sets?) and come in various fetching shades of turquoise (or 'aqua' as bathroom salesmen would put it!) against the jade-greens of the others.