I wish matchbox had made them too; they put a great SMG figure in winter quilted uniform and fur cap with their T34 kit which showed what might have been. If only!!

I was bitterly disappointed when Airfix reissued their old Russian Infantry without retooling. This set was the first I ever had, but even so, really needs updating for the modern market with a proper sized Maxim gun, better mortar and some LMG's. I never liked the 1/32 set much; the LMG pose was poor (but at least it had one!), too many SMG's and no personal equipment. They were copies of Esci hard plastic figures for the most part anyway and some Hong Kong factories produced knock-off copies in soft plastic for the 'Dime store' market in the 80's.

The soft plastic Esci set has two excellent poses (kneeling and advancing rifleman), the officer is good, LMG gunner passable(although the magazine looks a little small), and makes a good ATR operator, especially when teamed with the Maxim gunner as his assistant. There's an error with the Maxim crew too, as the gun feeds from the opposite side, and the gunner need to use both hands!

The rest of the set is garbage though, and why THREE female radio operators? The Soviets were lucky to get one radio per battalion! If they just wanted to include a female figure, they could have chosen a sniper, medic or traffic cop.

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Replying to:

I've got 7 Boxes of Esci (in three colors and counting), 1 of each of the Revell series(who really should do a horse artlery set too), on BUM set, four or five Airfix's and both Italeri sets (I hope they do Cavilry too). I've got alot of 1:72nd scale armor too. I wish matchbox did a set and I wish airfix 1:32 Russians were scaled down. Hat could tackle a large Red Army over severl sets so could Strelets. For lack of a better term, I want lots of line Infantry. A few more, actually alot more Anti-tank rifle poses would be nice. I'd like to see the Red army covered as well as the WWII Germans and the Romans

I agree with your assesssmsnt of the ESCI set, but their best poses are the best. Maybe a Red Army Female Personel kit would be in order.

To buy in quantity it needs to be armies that are are disproportionate in numbers to their opponents.The last army I built in this number was Zulus, But of course the British were far smaller in numbers so for the manufacturer you have a heavy selling set combined with a far lower selling set, but the zulus wouldn't sell without the British.

Other armies I would buy like this are Indian C18/C19 and Dervishes

At the moment all we have for campaigns in western/central Europe is the Revell 30YW Swedish horse plus the odd figure from other sets.

I am hoping Zvezda will soon announce a 17th cent. European cavalry set to go with their recently released Austrian infantry. This set is desperately needed (as shown by the high prices the now very rare Revell set commands on ebay) since cavalry played such a large role in 17th cent. European warfare. If the cavalry set has a mix of light and heavy, these 2 sets (plus some ACTA ECW artillery) could go a long way toward forming several different 17th cent. armies.

If only ACTA would release their ECW cavalry in 1/72, as they have done with their ECW infantry sets

Stuart - "They were copies of Esci hard plastic..."



They were designed by the great Charles Stadden and pre-date the Esci kits by years, whether Esci pirated them or had a licence is unknown, but they also copied the Africa Korp (with head changes), US Infantry etc..

Esci did however have one or two 'new' poses, and both the British Red Devils (Para's) and Smoke Unit (Nebelwerfer) were original (and have heavier sculpting), also the Green Devils (German Para's) in 1:35 and others.

My bad - I should have said copied by Esci in hard plastic.
Too much good Virginia bourbon keeping the cold Virginia winter at bay!

And why not, it's the weekend!