Finishing the Soviets

This week's lockdown painting has been focused on 'finishing' the Soviet army for Fortress Budapest. 

First up are the Soviet assault engineers. Up until around October 1942, the Soviets organised engineers and similar units into sapper armies made up of two to four sapper brigades. A sapper brigade controlled 19 sapper battalions, each with a strength of 497 men. These huge organisations, up to 50,000 men, were important in building the defences around Moscow, Leningrad and Stalingrad. However, after that period they needed greater flexibility and units were increasingly broken up and allocated to fronts as required.

Assault engineers were specialised units tasked with destroying strongpoints and clearing obstacles under fire. Dangerous work and therefore they were often equipped with body armour. These models are from Warlord.

Tidying up my 'to paint' draw, I found another pack of Great Escape Games Romanian riflemen. I have taken out the riflemen in caps for another project. They are the closest models I have yet found for Turkish infantry of WW2. 

So, this is the team photo for the Soviets, less the Romanians, who I might add to in the future. In the meantime onto to new projects!