Round 10 - Trotsky takes command vs. Retreat from Carentan

[Prof.Witchheimer]

[Hammers]

Oooh, tough...

[Svennn]

Really like the officer in leather jacket and cap. T'is a tough choice alright

[Darkoath]

Another really tough choice!

[carlos marighela]

Pogoni on Red Army troops? Never.

[joroas]

Swayed by the subtle camouflage, I was.

[Plynkes]

Pardon my utter ignorance of all things RCW, but what is "Pogoni" and why is it wrong?

[carlos marighela]

Shoulder boards old boy, coloured on one side khaki on the other. Hated symbol of Tsarist Russia. Removed under the Provisional government, the more reactionary Whites restored them, usually wearing the full colour side outward, in part to differentiate their troops who were wearing basically the same uniform as the Bolsheviks.

Not all 'White' armies wore them but the Red army most certainly did not. In fact it was popular, especially with captured white officers to nail the shoulderboards to their shoulders. They weren't reintroduced to the Soviet Army until 1943 when Stalin started putting a traditional nationalist spin on things to encourage the populace.

Other than that very nicely painted figures.

[Hammers]

Shoulder boards old boy, coloured on one side khaki on the other.

You know, I am not going to splurge my hard earned savings on private schooling for fiver, son of hammershield. I am just going to make him log on this forum and have the venerable masterminds and scatterbrains here tutor him.

[Plynkes]

One strange affectation I had as a teenager was to always let one of the shoulder boards on my Bundeswehr parka hang down unbuttoned.

Does that make me half a Trotskyist?

Thanks, Carlos. It's always good to know these things. One never knows when one will, due to an hilarious mix-up, end up as the historical advisor on a Russian Civil War epic movie (though my work on Saving Private Ryan generally goes unnoticed by the uncaring and ignorant wargames community. Dammit, if nothing else is right in that film, the tarpaulins on the CCKW 353s that you can just make out half a mile away in the distance are!)

[carlos marighela]

Button counting? Pointless pedantry? Of course. 

The thing about the RCW is that most folk were dressed the same and the few points of distinction were items like shoulder boards. In this instance it was politically of some moment. The Komuch troops who fought against the Red Army and I suppose could loosely be decribed as 'whites' were noted for calling out to their Bolshevik counterparts 'Look no shoulderboards, just like you' in an effort to get them to defect. The absence of the pogoni reinforcing their own political outlook which was decidedly anti monarchist and socialist in aspect.

[carlos marighela]

The Bundeswehr parka thing just meant you couldn't sew and were too shame faced to ask your mum to do the honours.

[Plynkes]

No sewing was required. The button hadn't fallen off, the board had merely come unfastened. So that either makes me extremely lazy or perhaps rather pretentious. Probably both, knowing me. Also, the parka had loads of ridiculous and rather pathetic socialist and/or anarchistic slogans in patch form already hand-sewn on my me. Sewing is one thing I do know about, no mum required (as Spielberg and Tom Hanks will tell you, if you ask them about the CCKW 353 tarps).

Seriously, I ain't taking the mickey, C.M. That really is fascinating. Who'd've thought something so ordinary and bland could gather such meaning around itself?

[Orctrader]

Oh dear, I hope I have not offended anyone regarding the uniforms.

To make the original deadline for Round 10 I had to paint what I had, which was these "Storm in the East" figures from Brigade Games.  The "Red Guard" Command and what was described - I think - as "Russian Infantry in caps."  Only 8, so I had to mix them to make the 10 figures bonus.

In my Osprey book on RCW - Red Army - and on The Web there are comments about the lack of "Shoulder Boards" but also stuff about "anything goes" particularly in the early days of the War.  So it was either file them off, or paint them as is. 

Sorry if offence to Historical Accuracy has been inadvertently given.

[Hammers]

I am sure Alex will put you before the board of moderators and have you flogged.