Soviet Naval Infantry

If I'm going to do a Soviet Naval Infantry (SNI) force, I needed some infantry.  These would be my 3rd Soviet force, as I already have Motor Rifle Troops in Summer Uniforms and Sun-Bunny coveralls and my VDV force.  I didn't really want to get another bunch of figures as this whole Soviet thing is now pretty big and when you add it all together - quite expensive (over time).

So I had a bit of a think and realised that I had quite a few of the Zvezda "Hot War" figures which might be useful.  Now these figures are most likely slightly "wrong" for what I was after which was for chaps to look like this:

And from the ubiquitous Dragon set:

Now painting a figure 95% black can be a bit boring - but as the Zvezda figures are all wearing body armour - which I would paint green - this might make them look slightly more interesting.

So I decided to go for it - and this is what I ended up with:

Not the greatest photos - I really struggle to light figures well - but this lot breaks them down a little further:

SAM Team

Kneeling Chaps

Standing Chaps

Running Chaps

RPG Chaps

Pointing Chaps

Lying Down Chaps with AKs

Lying Down Chaps with RPKs

Chaps with AT-7 Metis (Saxhorn) ATGM

Not sure how well you'll be able to see this, but each SNI trooper has been given a SNI patch of a yellow anchor in a red circle on a black (of course) backgound.  Like this:

So that's my SNI thus far.  I have enough there to fill out the 3 squads in a platoon (NCO, RPG, RPK and 4 AK-74) a couple of ATGM teams, a SAM team and nearly enough for the Platoon HQ.  So I ordered some Elhiem figures to make up a Company HQ, as well as filling out the Platoon Command Squad.

Plan is to be able to field this Zvezda Platoon, a Liberation Miniatures Platoon in Sun-Bunny Coveralls, plus ATGMs, SAM, Observers etc to make up a reduced company.  So I have about 5 or six figures to paint to complete the infantry side of things...

That's all for now

Richard