Painted Russians

You may have seen them in a forum already and here they are (also from the back), the first two Russian sets painted by Simon Bradley:

RJ-R02 Russian Troopers advancing I (4)

  

 RJ-R03 Russian Troopers firing I (4)

These are painted as 34th Infantry Regiment "Sevskiy" (the advancing miniatures) and as 36th Infantery Regiment "Orlovskiy" (the firing ones), both part of the 9th Infantery Division taking part in the battle of Liaoyang (August 24th to September 3rd, 1904), among others.

Sadly, the painted regimental number on the shoulder pieces are very hard to see on the photos.

The Russian infantry division consisted of four infantry regiments organised in two brigades and used a system of coloured cap bands and shoulder pieces to determine seniority within the division and belonging to brigade.

Seniority of the regiment within the division indicated by the colour of the cap band:

1^st red

2^nd blue

3^rd white

4^th dark green

Shoulder straps indicated the brigade within the division:

1^st Brigade: scarlet

2^nd Brigade: dark blue

In case of the 9th Infantry Division this meant:

33^rd Regiment "Eletskiy":     cap band: red,                 shoulder straps:  scarlet

34^th Regiment "Sevskiy":     cap band: blue,                shoulder straps:  scarlet

35^th Regiment "Brianskiy":   cap band: white,              shoulder straps:  dark blue

36^th Regiment "Orlovskiy":  cap band: dark green,      shoulder straps:  dark blue

Purely by chance I stumble across the following photo while looking for examples of the style of numerals used on the shoulder pieces ( it has been taken from a Russian book, according to the forum it was posted in):

It shows exactly the colour combinations for the 9th Division I had picked for Simon as painting reference! (Please note the gold on the shoulder pieces indicates that these are officers' pieces, afaik.)

The exact colours of the shirts and cap covers were, more or less, chosen by random. Original these were white but this proofed very dangerous in combat against the Japanese as they were very good shots. So the Russian soldiers were ordered to dye them khaki with whatever means they had at hand or the local shops or laundries could provide. Some books mention that General Kuropatkin even ordered those of his men, that had no possibility to dye their clothes to just stop washing them!

The so achieved colours ranged from a light yellowish khaki tone to a pretty dark green a US Army observer at the scene decribe as a colour very similar to the olive drab used by the US Army with a green hint.