Reds on horse and foot

My little red ponies adding speed and flexibility to the proletarian revolutionary forces.

Some more Bolo Commanders backing up Ace Red Agent Roza Rubinstein.

A closer pic of some of the Bolo Horde, these are less uniform and could serve as newly raised conscripts, Partisans or Red Guards.

Special Siberian Kommissar Trevsky and a company of greatcoat clad Red Army men.

More regular Red Army soldiers

That's all my RCW figs painted now until a batch of Cossacks arrive from Northstar.  I do have this new arrival from 1st Corps to work on though.

More Whites

I've completed the Whites I have for now.  That's a strange feeling.  All figures are from Copplestone miniatures Back of Beyond range but include some simple conversions.

14th Irtysh Siberian Rifle Regiment

15th Kurgan Siberian Rifle Regiment

Some support bases.  The light gun is the standard M1902 76 mm divisional gun from Copplestone Miniatures. The heavy piece is a 152 mm M1910 howitzer from Mad Bob Miniatures with Copplestone crew including a converted Bolshevik from the Elite MG pack.

And a quick group shot

Red Sailors Ahoy!

Here is a unit of Bolshevik Sailors.  They carry a red saltire, converting the traditional St Andrew's cross of the Russian Navy to a more appropriate socialist colour.

In the front rank is my completed Anatoli Zhelezniakov inspired conversion.  He was an Anarchist actually not a Bolshevik but a Red Army Commander nonetheless.

More Red Flags

Some more Red Army Flags.  The flags with the yellow writing use the first official RSFSR (РСФСР) symbols designed in 1918 by Sergei Vasilyevich Chekhonin.  The white letters in a cross form are from an alternative and slightly earlier pattern.

See this link for the development of the Red State flag and this one for more information on Red Army symbols.

The first slogan from the left reads "Ни шагу назад", "Not a step back" and is another from the 1st Reserve Communist regiment.  The second says "Советскую власть тогда возьмут, когда через наши трупы пройдут!", "Then they will take Soviet power when they pass through our corpses!" or perhaps "They will take Soviet power over our dead bodies" is a better translation of the meaning.  This slogan was carried by the Mountain Eagles of Tarbagatai, a Red partisan unit that operated in Northern Semirech (Kazakhstan), fighting the Whites of the Annenkov division.  The last has the words "В защиту свободы готовы мы жертвовать собой", "In defense of freedom, we are ready to sacrifice ourselves" and is from the Pskov regional committee.

Red Flags

After hand painting the White Flags, my Red Flags didn't match.  I wasn't happy with them anyway, so I redid them.  Now someone will tell me I've spelt the slogans wrong.

The slogans say: "Пролетарии всех стран, соединяйтесь", "Workers of the world unite"; "Победа или смерть", “Victory or death”; "За власть Советов", “For the power of the Soviets”.  The first is a Russian translation of a famous line from the Communist Manifesto and was later the motto of the Soviet Union.  The second and third were among the banners carried by the 1st Reserve Communist Regiment of Kiev in June 1919.  See this great thread on the Studio Siberia forum for a lots of information on banners and flags of the civil war era Red Army.

And a work in progress shot.  

Here is a link to the Studio Siberia Forum thread translated using Google Translate.

Rivets

This is a neat trick I used for making the rivets on the train.  I bought '1000' half pearl acrylic beads with a flat back used for nail art.  They were cheap and work nicely as rivets in 28mm.

I glued them on to the plasticard with a bit of slightly water down PVA using an old paint brush.

After painting and a light dry brush they do nicely as large heavy duty rivets for 28mm vehicles. 

White Flags

My Whites are based on the Siberian army under Kolchak in spring and summer 1919, specifically the 4th Siberian Division of Vezbitsky's 3rd Corps.

4th Siberian Rifle Division (Major General I.S. Smolin)

13th Omsk Siberian Rifle Regiment (Staff Captain Medvedev)
14th Irtysh Siberian Rifle Regiment (Colonel Dombrowski.)
15th Kurgan Siberian Rifle Regiment (Colonel B.G. Vezbolovich)
16th Ishim Siberian Rifle Regiment (Colonel A.G. Metelev)
4th Light artillery division (Colonel V.A. Plotnikov) 
4th howitzer artillery division (Colonel Cherepanov)
4th rear personnel regiment (Colonel P.M. Guede)

This is the flag of the 16th Ishim regiment.

The green and white are the Siberian colours with the militia cross on one side and the shield is the city arms of Ishim.

The upper part is the Tobolsk Imperial Province and the lower part is the emblem of the city.

See here for the coats of arms of the provinces and regions of the Russian Empire.

Taking this as a model I have adapted the Ishim flag for the other regiments using the arms of the other cities.  Thanks to Curpum for the idea.

Omsk

Kurgan

Irtysh is a river not a city, so I have used the modern Omsk Oblast flag as the lower half of the arms.

To make the flags I have adapted a technique cribbed from Steve's painting shed to hand paint them.  My flags are 40mm wide though with a few mm for the pole, to go with the somewhat larger Copplestone figures.

For other flags of the Whites see this Link.

Siberian White Army

I have now finished the first two units of my Siberian White Army.

 13th Omsk

16th Ishim