MiniArt Soviet Road Signs WWII (35601) 1:35

[Mike]

Soviet Road Signs WWII (35601)

1:35 MiniArt via Creative Models Ltd.

 

 

If you're travelling unfamiliar roads you need a little help to find your way, which is where road signs come in, and with the size of Russia and the likelihood that most of their troops weren't used to being away from their home villages, it's hardly surprising that signs became more important once the Great Patriotic War began in earnest.  This set is full of signs of this nature, and includes military signs to guide their troops to rally points, service areas and so forth as they didn't have the luxury of GPS and satnav back then.

 

 

 

The set arrives in a shrink-wrapped figure box with a painting of the contents on the front and brief instructions on the rear.  There are four medium-sized sprues in grey styrene in the box, plus a decal sheet on thick paper that contains all the painted descriptive fronts of the signs.  As well as the signs themselves there are a number of posts on which to hang then, one of which is a two-part telegraph pole with a lamp on a decorative bracket and ceramic insulators on short metal arms from which you can hang wires loose as shown in the diagrams, or taut if you have something to attach them to.  Each sign is either metal or moulded with a restrained wooden texture that will show through the decals if you use decal solution during drying.  Some of the larger signs are also made from a few planks, so the joins will also show through the decal.  On the sprue that contains the pole there are also additional undocumented parts for poles and such, which you could also press into service if you can figure out how to put them together.  There are 50 signs so there will be a few decals left over, but it's entirely up to you how you lay them out.  The instructions recommend painting the faces of the signs gloss white before you apply the decals so they obtain the maximum brightness, and in case you don't read Russian, there's a helpful translation graphic on their website, which we have reproduced for you below:

 

 

 

 

Conclusion

Dioramas rely on the minutiae of the background to give that "lived in" look to the terrain, and signage is essential for all but the straightest of roads.  The addition of the telegraph pole gives extra depth to any road scene, and the painting guide helps with painting the plastic parts.

 

Highly recommended.

 

Review sample courtesy of