This may seem a silly question, but is it safe to assume that Polish troops and Soviet ones were identical in equipment and clothing?

I don't know about clothing, but the Polish on the Eastern Front (Western Front from Russia's point of view) were equipped with Soviet vehicles such as tanks, spg's, and trucks. They normally wore the White Eagle insignia. It would make sense that they would have been equipped with Soviet style uniforms as well.

Not identical. The Polish military has a long and storied history. Units raised in soviet territory would have soviet made arms and equipment, but the Poles would have retained things like their uniforms and especially the "rogatywka" 1937 field cap. They used russian helmets and arms but ithink the entire 1st and 2nd infantry divisions had specific uniforms and insignia.

Heres a couple of sites
Poles

[url=https://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?81050-WWII-uniforms-equipment-and-gear]more Polesurl]

The Poles on t he Eastern Front had it pretty tough - they fought from Kursk all the way to Berlin.

Chris

A politically charged question here

I was thinking of Miniart's new T-70 tank used by the Polish forces.

But I do wonder how they were regarded by their Soviet sponsors.

Interesting turn of phrase to describe the Russians as "sponsors" in the context of their activities in Poland after WW2. I'm sure the Polish wouldn't see it quite like that.

No doubt Alan! I used to work for a Polish woman who was the US Amb to Estonia and she said the Soviet's did nothing for Poland during the war OR after it.

Chris

Other than kick the Nazis out of it?

Not wanting to get to involved in a history lesson . But the US and UK beat the Germans in western Europe , helped rebuild ( including Germany ) and ,for the most part went home. The Soviets decided to stay in countries they fought in , and the citizens of said countries , became slaves and or prisioners . Ask any older Pole , Slovac ,Hungarian , etc about the Soviets.......

As an aside, there are a lot of old hatreds involved in this topic. The Russians coiuld have walked on water and some Poles would have cursed them for getting the water dirty. And not without cause considering how the Russians entered into Poland and ran things in '39.

The German's were Bad, the Russians were almost as bad, and the western powers used the Poles as bargaining chips in dealing with Stalin. All in all, bad time to be a Pole...

I have seen pictures of Polish troops using Russian Equipment, using Pre-war Polish equipment, and even using captured German equipment. I do not know enough about the above to tell you what units, where, or under what circumstances, only that they were wartime troops fighting with the Soviets.

For clarification.
In the east, in Soviet Russia was created Polish People's Army, militarily and politically subordinated to Stalin (not to the Polish government in exile in London, which existed from 1939 to 1990. They were the head of Polish armed forces in the west). This was associated with his plans to create a communist regime in Poland, It was created from the released prisoners.
This army used Soviet vehicles (sometimes American, from Lend Leese) weapons, but had their own uniforms, even the Soviet officers and soldiers serving there wore Polish uniforms (most of the Polish officers were murdered by the Soviets at Katyn in 1940, soviet officer gives Stalin more control over this army).
Part of the newly created army (which did not like the plans of the Soviets), escaped from Soviet Russia through the Middle East, became part of the Polish armed forces in the West and fought at Monte Cassino.


The T-70 tank was used by First Armored Brigade name 'Heroes of Westerplatte' , and remained in service until September 1944. so you can use the Miniart model,
If you look for some figures of Polish soldiers from east, ToRo Model has them in its offer:



And more: http://toro-model.home.pl/pliki/figurki35e.htm

They should also be available well abroad.