Could anyone point me in the direction of what to use for Croatian/ Yugoslav war figures? I have takoms T-55 and would like to add a crew, i know they various amounts of uniforms but would going with Soviet era Cold War figures be the best way to do this?
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Hello,
There are not many to chose from, if Croatia/Ex Yugoslav designation is applied as a search function.
Black Army Modells has several Croatian figures:
Croatian soldier 1995, Black Army Modells 35-03
Croatian soldier 1991, Black Army Modells 35-04
There is an old Kirin Yugoslavian tank crew, which are actually Slovenians:
Yugoslav ground force, KIRIN 25006
And one Serbian, again from Black Army Modells:
Serbian tank crew 1990s, Black Army Modells 35-48 (2021)
There isn’t much designating this one as Serbian, so perhaps it could pass as Croatian as well.
Mario
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@Maki thank you for the response. Almost looks as if anything goes when it comes to this time in history. The one croatian figure almost looks like he has American bdus on.
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Try Triglav models, they don’t have many figures but do a lot of vehicles for this region and timeframe.
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To try and find an answer, I just looked through a couple of old Concord books about the war in the former Yugoslavia: The Balkans on Fire — Nightmare in Yugoslavia by Yves Debay and James Hill and The Balkans at War — Yugoslavia Divided 1991 by Eric Micheletti. Though very few Croatian vehicle crews are pictured in those, it looks to me like they either wore the grey-green Yugoslavian uniform, or more likely, ones like American BDUs, plus Russian-style tank helmets. However, in one of those books there’s also a T-55 with large Croatian markings and all sorts of graffiti in blue and red, whose crew wears East German “raindrop” camouflage winter coats with fake-fur collars.
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Black Army Modells website (with maybe a few more options there…)
https://blackarmymodells.com/product-category/figures/1-35/?v=82a9e4d26595
H.P.
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While in Sarajevo back in '95, the different fighting forces were wearing a mix of both military and civilian clothes and boots/shoes. Serbian military police units had blue/purple tigerstribe uniforms.
Best regards
Jacob
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Was able to find a picture of the Marina t-55 that I’m building. Looks like the crew had fur coats on that are more comparable to Soviet ones. Just trying to figure out how i want to display the crew or what figures to mix and match with it.
I do have some East German figures that h can do up and make them Croatian as well. Maybe a hodge podge of guys in miss matching uniforms and aks together.
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Friul used to have a Yougoslavian fighter. And probably Azimut too.
Olivier
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Yes, the JNA BDUs were quite similar to US or French BDUs in their pattern and design. And like mentioned above a mishmash of civil and military clothing.
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Those three tank crew guys in the tan uniforms with the fur collar- that appears to be very close to the Soviet/Russian Afghanka pattern uniform- the winter version. There are quite a few figs out there of Soviet/Russian tank crew wearing that uniform- TANK and Evolution make some good resin ones.
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Sounds like this will be, in theory, a lot easier then i expected.
@Karl187 i have seen those figures around which makes this simpler. Just need to narrow down the time of year for this build/ diorama and go from there.
@Stikpusher how much of a difference would it be or is it so minute that no one could tell?
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That’s the tank I specifically mentioned. The crew in the photo in The Balkans on Fire are wearing NVA Strichtarn winter coats like this:
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That is a very similar shape to the Afghanka uniform- even the upper arm pockets are in the same place.
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@Jakko i think that would be easy to paint on some Russian figures and call them Croats
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I may have misidentified the coats, because the photo in the book is very small, but I think I can see the camouflage pattern in it.
NVA combat jackets all had that type of sleeve pockets. Pretty useless, they’re almost impossible to open and get your hand into unless you hold your arm awkwardly backward.
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@Jakko i assume i can make a safe assumption that i could use East German tank crewman in any variant of uniform. This will make it a bit easier.
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Yes, looking at the pic again I think you are correct- they appear dark brown just like the NVA camo.
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@Karl187 i think i can work with this. Should be a fun one
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Probably, though if you want to replicate the real tank around the time it was photographed, the winter coats would be your best option. The crews in the photo I’ve been referring to are also wearing Yugoslavian-style peaked caps, not Soviet tank helmets.
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