introduction

On 10 May 1945, U.S patrols sent out from the 104th Infantry made contact with the 1st Battalion, 263d Regiment, 86th Russian Infantry Division, X Corps, 46th Russian Army, at Ceske-Budejovice, Czechoslovakia. The photo shows 1st Lt. John Tate of Middleton, MD, from the 26th Infantry Yankee Division having a friendly chat with two Red Army female officers.

Neucraft Models from China lately released two figure kits inspired by this World War II war-time photo. 35004-WW II US Army Lieutenant and 35005-Red Army Female Officer A are the new figures to make this nice scene. The letter A on the female figure made me think there will be a B figure depicting the other Soviet lady. Both figures are sculpted in crisp and clean details in 1/35 scale by Qing Yi and cast in grey resin.

packing&casting

Each figure comes well packed in a white cardboard box labeled with a photo of the assembled figure painted by Han Dong and basic info about the content. Figure is double secured in a zip-lock bag inside a bubble wrap bag.
Casting quality is top-notch with no need for a cleanwork. There will also be no or very less need for assembly as Neucraft figures are cast in one piece or just a few. Really amazing to make such clean casts as one piece figures.

figures

35004-US ARMY LIEUTENANT
Figure is in one-piece with a rifle given as a seperate part. A small brass wire as the cigarette on right hand is included inside the plastic bag too. I liked these two small parts are taped to the figure’s legs to avoid damage or loss.

Facial details are well defined showing likeness to the original photo. He has a M1 helmet with chinstrap tied on the backside. Posed in right arm on a neutral pose with a cigarette at hand and left arm on his waist over his pistol belt, he wears US Army coat style shirt with seven buttons down the front, button cuffs, two large breast pockets with flapcovers closed by buttons and Wool trousers with side pockets, button fly and adjustment tabs on trotters. Cloth folds and wrinkles are well defined. As for the footgear, he has Ankle high leather boots.

Attached to his pistol belt, he carries a First aid kit pouch on the front right, a M1 carbine twin ammo pouch on front left and water bottle in canvas cover. On the left back, there is a Binoculars case with a strap crossed on the right shoulder.

He carries a .30 caliber semi-automatic M1 carbine. Rifle shows nice details and gunsling is sculpted on the figure’s right shoulder.

CLARIFICATION

: When the news about this figure was first published in Armorama, it was pointed that First Lt. rank bar is incorrectly shown on both collars but left collar should have a crossed-rifle insignia instead of rank bar. Regarding this justified criticism, the company decided to remove the rank bar on the officer's left collar. Unfortunately, boxart will keep to show two rank bars but resin figure inside kit has only one on the right collar as seen on the close-up photos on the right.

35005-RED ARMY FEMALE OFFICER
Figure comes as a single piece figure. Facial details, hair and Red Army Beret with red star badge are well defined. Khaki or blue berets were issued to all female officers in Soviet army with no color specifications.

Unlike the standard female officer uniform consisting of khaki tunic, dark blue skirt and boots; figure wears the dress type uniform introduced in 1941 for military women with non-combatant command staff positions. Wide collar, cuffs with double buttons, slit breast pockets with flap covers, front open with buttons and shoulder straps are well defined. She carries a watch on the left wrist.

She has closed, low-cut, heeled shoes with a thin strap fastened with a buckle like Mary Jane shoes.

conclusion

Nice figures to create the same scene of a realtime photo. Figures come with no casting blocks and in one piece so you will need to do nothing before painting them. Very clean and crisp details on both. US Army Lieutenant can be used in many different WW II scenes.