S is for Salute the Bear!

I had one of those rare moments the other day, as reported recently by Bob Legget in Plastic Warrior No.173, of purchasing a cheapie from evilBay on the off-chance, and having more delivered than was expected, not a lot more, but enough!

I'd bid on what appeared to be four loose AFV's and an aeroplane, only for both the original bag and the packing slip to turn-up - having not been in the photographs!

The Logo is similar to the Odessa cultural goods/metal-works factory (Kultbyttovarov) logo we looked at a while ago with the help of Nazar Marchenko, but while that was a cat-bear or bear-cat (?) this is definitely a teddy-bear's head (it's all in the ears!), and the work's title translates as Salute Factory (завод Салют = zeaveode Esaelyute = zavod Salute = Salute works).

The four AFV's which I'd looked for after posting the other rocket-launchers and things a while ago (it's nearly March FFS!); a nice mid-Cold War grouping of 2 WWII/post-war SU's, and a - then -more up-to-date T54 and a PT76, in a size which [we will see below] comes-in at a reasonable HO-gauge compatibility.

The two plastic colours fall either side of the Kultbyttovarov FROG, but these are unmarked, I wouldn't say they weren't from the same tool-maker's though! There is as much duplication among these Soviet toys as there was in British khaki-infantry, French bazaar toys, or US derivatives of Tim-Mee!

The turrets (and gun-breaches) are held-on but allowed to move by having the ends of their locating-studs/breeches melted-back with a hot screwdriver (the breaches are actually melted-in a bit more firmly), creating a retaining 'mushroom', here the operator has got the angle wrong or pressed too-hard and left his mark in the hull!

The four heavies are accompanied by a twin-engined Illyushin Il28 'Beagle' (? - copied by the Chinese as the Hong/Harbin-5) for a bit of aerial support. As you may already have cottoned-on; the paler of the two greens is possibly the most un-photogenic colour I've ever tried to shoot, it sort of soaks-in the flash and spits it out again, as glare, all in the same millisecond - I've deleted dozens of poorer shots, yet the dark-green ones are in proper focus - they're all similarly surface-detailed; promise!

The hull in the top-left shot is the Battlefront (GaleForceNine)'s Pz.Kpfw.IV in 1:100th scale, the T34 is Roco-Minitanks' [rather too-tall] early effort in a nominal 1:87th, while the PT76 is Roskopf's which should also be 1:100, the evidence - as you can see - puts the Soviet Salute stuff closer to the hundredth than the eighty-seventh!

So; with the previously seen stuff, I've now got quite a few Russian Bears in the Right-Revolutionary Ready-made Russkie Regiment! I'll track-down a few more (I know there's a KV II still to find) and then we'll look at them all together.