Welcome to the Strelets Forum. Please feel free to discuss any aspect of 1/72 scale plastic figures, not simply Strelets. If you have any questions about our products then we will answer them here.
I thought Strelets were going to add a shield but I mistook the two recoil cylinders in front of the axle for pegs to hold a shield.
The sight and therefore the layer seems to have been on the left (looking from the crew position) and the breech operator to the right so I will try and place my gunners different than in Strelets' picture.
Lack of a shield is the annoying and probably the biggest mistake of Strelets I've seen and the serious shortcoming of the model! I would strongly recommend them to rework this model and release the second version with gun shield...