"The White Tights", белые колготки

[former user]

Hi
"The White Tights" appear to be an urban legend of the post soviet russian army about female only anti russian mercenary snipers who pop up in conflicts with russian participation and switch off russian soldiers. More here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Tights
they seem to be baltic biathletes, hence the name...
if this is not wargaming nurture, I don't know what is!
Anyone transferred this to miniature/gameplay?

I haven't but I am already rummaging through my memory about female sniper miniatures....

[Wyrmalla]

I'd suggest looking at Statuesque Miniatures if you're looking for models. West Wind's Secrets of the Third Reich range contained a few female snipers. Reaper does a female Soviet Sniper model too. Plenty of companies make female snipers, its just achieving that Eastern European look I suppose.

[S_P]

I've got 2 models in 20mm; one from the plastic Orion set and one in WM for Under Fire Miniatures. I just added them in as snipers with the usual rules. I'm pretty sure that they are just myth so don't worry about them too much.

More believable are the black widows- again in plastic from the Orion set.

[carlos marighela]

I thought all Soviet and immediately post Soviet era athletes were bi. Something to do with the drug and hormone treatments they received.

[former user]

hence the aggressive behaviour, sniping at the former brother-in-arms, how dare they 

but you must admit the idea is gold. I am surprised GW hasn't picked it up yet 

[carlos marighela]

As urban myths go, yeah it's a pretty cool one. I suppose you could cheat and use one of the Eureka Russian snipers with a Dragunov in NBC suit or head swap one of the new ones in KLMK overalls and body armour. You could paint either white as a snow camouflage suit. On the other hand I suppose you could probably cobble something together from the WF Female survivors.

When I was it university, it was rumoured that one of the leading lights  in the Politics Department, some ultra-nationalist, right wing Polish dingbat, headed over to Afghanistan to fight with the mujahideen. Allegedly, he was killed on his little holiday to Afghanistan by the Red Army. Whether it was true or not, I don't know but it did instill a delightful feeling of schadenfreude amongst many of us.

[DoctorPete]

Oh, dear.  White is so hard to keep clean while crawling through hostile terrain!   

They could be used as a random event in a game without the need for an actual figure; just a shot from an unknown location at a random officer, etc...

[former user]

that's a cool idea for snipers in general!

I think the white tights idea is that they would wear white biathlon competition suits, maybe not literally in action.

[Brummie]

Slightly veering of, but there was a lot of mention of foreign fighters in Chechnya from the Baltic States/Eastern Europe.

Just look at those Ultra-nationalists in the Ukraine, Svoboda, they apparently had a presence for a short period of time in the Caucasus. I wouldn't be surprised if other small groups made it over there from Europe.

[former user]

of course, as there were germans (not UN-troops) in the Bosnia conflict or as there are turks in Syria, or foreign mercenaries/ideologists in every civil war around the globe. The interesting point here is that it has developed into an urban legend in the russian army that there are female snipers from countries formerly oppressed by the red army who kind of exact payback. I wonder why.....

[carlos marighela]

There's an amusing passage in Robert Fisk's 'Pity the Nation' where he mentions the presence of a group of German neo-nazis who wound up in Lebanon with a view to helping one of the various Palestinian guerilla groups, figuring they had something in common. The Phalangists caught them and gave them the chop, quick smart, which is deliciously ironic given the roots of the Lebanese Phalange movement.

[Maspalio]

I didn't know this urban legend and this is a good inspiration

[Brummie]

of course, as there were germans (not UN-troops) in the Bosnia conflict or as there are turks in Syria, or foreign mercenaries/ideologists in every civil war around the globe. The interesting point here is that it has developed into an urban legend in the russian army that there are female snipers from countries formerly oppressed by the red army who kind of exact payback. I wonder why.....

I wonder if it has anything to do with how notorious Red Army Women snipers were during WW2?

Maybe its an evolution of that? Although of course the WW2 bit wasn't a myth, but maybe it lived on into other conflicts, only this time they were at the receiving end of it?

[former user]

interesting...
I knew that the soviets advertised anything "with women", like pilots, snipers etc, but I wasn't aware of women having performed better at sniping....

Maybe modern russian soldiers are very well aware how well women can "payback"  by sniping

[Westy38]

Hello there.

As far as I can tell the White Tights/Stockings never existed except in myth. At least their existance has never been formally confirmed.

However. That didn't stop me having one sculpted for Chechen Militia 4 : Leader + Light Support, from my range of Generic & Chechen Militia packs !

Here she is...

                      

Link to the online store here...

http://www.underfireminiatures.com/page15.htm

Regards

www.underfireminiatures