Traditionally Soviet tactics in World War II are seen as waves of men being hurled at enemy positions until they overwhelm them despite suffering enormous casualties, and to a great extent that is true. However after Stalingrad there was growing interest in more sophisticated tactics and alternatives to the human-wave approach, and one result of this was the formation of assault units, particularly engineers. By the last year of the war such assault engineers were well established, and as effective and professional as their German adversaries.
Since it seems most of the body armour was issued to assault engineers we will use that label for this set, and as such there is nothing suspect in terms of accuracy. The men all wear camouflage clothing including a hooded smock and baggy over-trousers gathered at the ankle, plus the standard M1940 helmets of course. The most interesting feature is the body armour, which is the SN-42 (the most widely issued Soviet body armour of the war). The shape has been well done here, including the twin chest and abdomen panels and the cutaway section round the right shoulder to facilitate movement of the weapons arm and to reduce weight. The men have similar kit consisting of a gasmask case (almost certainly minus any gasmask by 1945), water bottle in its canvas cover, pouch for grenades and another for the submachine gun magazine. This last has been positioned well below the waist belt on some of the figures, which is odd as it was always attached to the belt, unless perhaps the wearing of the armour forced some form of alternative arrangement.
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