28mm Russian helemet query

[Dodgy_Ed]

Good evening LAFers I have found myself in possesion of a bucket load of the Baker Company Winter war Russians and I'm looking to replace their budenovkas with something more appropriate for combat, so therefore does anyone know of any producers of 28mm heads with SSH36 steel helmets?

As an aside the main reason to be replacing the heads is the truly godawful and utterly woeful casting quality on the heads; to say the moulds must have been tired when they were cast would be an understatment I've painted up some of these guys before and whilst the casting was never the best this batch is frankly an embarrasment.

I am of course really really looking forwards to beheading 100 metal minis - going to be so much fun

[Ultravanillasmurf]

Have you seen Westwind's Separate Head Sysytem?

[Dodgy_Ed]

I have but unless I'm blind/an eejit (neither option being ruled out  ) there's nothing that instantly screams I'm an early war hat? hoping very much to be proven wrong

[Ultravanillasmurf]

I have but unless I'm blind/an eejit (neither option being ruled out  ) there's nothing that instantly screams I'm an early war hat? hoping very much to be proven wrong

Sorry, I saw Soviet helmet and did not register you wanted the pre-war design.

You could go earlier and go for Adrian.

For some weird reason I am unable to post links.

[Dodgy_Ed]

That's certainly a possibility seems like I can at least find one manufacturer out there from Studio Siberia (under the Poland range):
http://siberia-miniatures.ru/product_info.php?cPath=41_39_51_155&products_id=872

Has anyone seen these in the flesh? from the pic I can't tell if there is any type of badge sculpted on the front that might need removing

[Kelgtar]

If you are going for historically correct, ditch the helmets. During the war, there weren't any helmets enough for all the soldiers. So for example when you see ww2 soviet pictures with soldiers with all helmets, that's a 50's remake for propaganda.

[Dodgy_Ed]

historical accuracy aside (I'm not touching that assertion one way or the other) I've already got 80 of the wee buggers painted up in budenovkas and the casting quality on this batch is so very bad they pretty much all need head swaps - so steel helms it is 

[cuprum]

If you are going for historically correct, ditch the helmets. During the war, there weren't any helmets enough for all the soldiers. So for example when you see ww2 soviet pictures with soldiers with all helmets, that's a 50's remake for propaganda.

You're wrong. Steel helmets were enough. SSH-36 was produced 1 million 600 thousand pieces. The problem was that it was impossible to wear a helmet on budenovka (and why it was abandoned). It was necessary to have a knitted balaclava. Or a hat with earflaps, which was not yet in the Soviet-Finnish war.

Adrian's helmet was a little common in the Red Army. In 1939 she was decommissioned. In Finland, as far as I know, it was not used.

Unfortunately, I can’t help with finding heads in helmets of the SSH-36. I do not know such figures.

[Dodgy_Ed]

Bugger how much of a visual difference at 28mm would you think there is between an SSH36 and 40? would the warlord plastics heads look to incongruous.

As far as I can see from Google the shape is quite similar but the 36 looks to have a small piece on the top and a more pronounced brow line - I'm not convinced the more pronounced brow would be that visible at this scale -the knobbly piece however might well be  

[N.C.S.E]

Warlord plastics have a number of these helmets and the difference is visible. I have spares but the 5-6 I have mightn't be enough for such a project!

I'll back up Cuprum's remarks. Not having enough helmets is wrong and such misunderstandings might be more symptomatic of 50s propaganda themselves! I've read a good number of Soviet veterans memoirs in my time (eng.iremember.ru is a treasure trove) and not one I've read mentions such problems.

[cuprum]

M.1936 usually looks somewhat more than M.1939-40.
But if you are not afraid to use a little green stuff, then I think this is not a very big problem.
Hope this helps in conversion:





SSH-36




SSH-40

[Dodgy_Ed]

Thanks Cuprum those photos are great; exactly what I was looking for.


The warlord helmets are some bastardised melange of the two; they've got the flared look of the 36 but not the metal 'knob' on top; looks like it's going to be warlord and green stuff all the way. I knew these were too cheap

[cuprum]

Happy to help)))

[FreakyFenton]

Sorry to add to this late, but I think Warlord does have one helmet like that on their sprues, the rest however are the usual soviet ones you find with every kit.