Reviewed by Cookie Sewell

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Today in Nostalgic Plastic I found these two new sets of figures (I believe they also had some German ones, but as they were more formulatic they did not register, and for that I apologize). I thought at first they were resin sets from MiniArt of Hong Kong, but to my suprise they were styrene kits from Simferapol in Ukraine.

I picked up the two Soviet ones for a closer look.

Kit 001 has four Soviet soldiers relaxing, at least on the box art, on the rear deck of a T-34 that is sitting idle. All four wear the "pilotka" sidecaps and are taking it easy talking or rolling cigarettes. The faces are not as well animated inside the kit as on the box, but one of them is a "starik" – old guy, in slang – with a big handlebar moustache. All are casual and wearing the summer combat uniform and felt boots. Weapons are not spectacular, being either PPSh -41 with drum or PPSh-41 with curved magazines. All four have removed their bedrolls and are sitting on them to reduce the harshness (and heat!) of the T-34 engine deck.

While not animated enough to be good "foreground" figures, they are good for background "fillers" or as "cargo" on a single model of a T-34.

Kit 002 is quite different. All four figures are marching in winter uniform; two wear quilted uniforms and two wear overcoats. All are of the same basic period (1943-1945) as Kit 001. The most interesting part of these figures is that all four figures come with a choice of three different heads: one with "pilotka", one with the "ushanka" fur cap with the ear flaps in the "up" position, and one with the steel Model 1942 helmet. All 12 heads are unique, and when examined close up can be seen to have different noses, ears, eyes, etc. They are a bit soft as compared to resin heads, but should paint up decently and are an amazing variety in a plastic kit.

The uniforms are well done and most of the kit have their ejection pin marks or the inevitable sinkholes found in large castings such as bags or legs where they are hidden when the figure is assembled. Again, weapons are not impressive – two PPSh, one Moisin carbine and one DP machine gun (which in my sample was incompletely shot and had a missing section of barrel between the heat shield and flash hider). The overcoat skirts will need a bit of thinning, but that is pretty much the norm and not hard to deal with.

Overall these are decent kits, and when cross-kitted with other Soviet figure sets gives the modeler a wider choice of seasons and uniforms to use in fitting out a diorama or single model.

Cookie Sewell
AMPS

Review Copyright © 2003 by Cookie Sewell
Page Created 19 May, 2003
Last updated 24 August, 2003

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