I need a quick question about the Soviet WW2 tunics. Did they the M35 versions have breast pockets or were they removed for the M43 versions? I have Miniart's Soviet Infantry At Rest figure set and they lack the breast pockets. If they are exclusively late war, I might have to change my plans.

Thanks in advance.

Alex ... From the little bit of hunting i did it seems that the M35 and M43 tunics both have pockets .

This website will answer your question very nicely

http://ncairsoft.org/forum/showthread.php?4134-Wwii-red-army-kit

Strange how an airsoft web site will have the answers but there ya go

Phill

Phill, Thanks. That link has some nice pictures as well.

The M43 seems to have varied based on the rank of the person wearing them. Your basic enlisted man was pocketless. NCOs had one type of pocket whereas an officer had a different type of pocket. There were also variations on reinforcement patches for the elbow. I think the officers' tunics lacked them. The enlisted men had them. The NCOs sometimes had them. I probably mixed some of that up.

What I am looking at is to use them for early war. I'm probably going to play it safe and try to put together a couple of figures with the pockets.

In the Miniart set they are wearing the uniform dated from 1943,with no pockets and collar. As told, normal infantry soldier's tunica didn't have pockets, commanders / officers did have them.

For early war time you need the early tunica.

To shave off chest pockets or add them using foil or rolled out putty should not be too dificult, should you need to make some changes. These first MiniArt figures are quite rough and basic modelling skills will be needed to get them up to sctratch. I´d definately look about some better heads for them as well.

Thanks for the additional comments.

@Evgenij, Yeah that's what I was afraid of. I was kind of hoping there might have been a run of early tunics without the pockets. Maybe sneak one of them in there. I figured it would be a long shot but it never hurts to ask.

@Frank, The figures are pretty rough. My set is heavy with flash as well. I didn't pay but a couple of dollars for them. I was thinking of maybe adding the pockets. I have a couple of pocketed torsos in the spares box so I might just try to swap them out and see how that looks. These guys are going to be prisoners so they won't have any equipment on them except maybe a canteen.