Some random Poles

Last week I was at a bit of a loose end and fancied painting something so I dug through a few bags of spare 20mm figures and pulled out a random one. It was a Warsaw Past soldier in a beret but not the kind worn by Soviet VDV (airborne troops). Somewhere in the memory banks I knew I'd seen something like it and sure enough, a check on the bookshelves turned up this from the Osprey book Soviet Bloc Elite Forces. 

Digging through the other bags in the same drawer I worked out that I might have enough models to make myself a platoon of Cold War Polish marines!

Some research suggested that a Polish marine platoon for Arc of Fire would be something like this:

Platoon HQ (Tac 5)

Platoon Commander        Assault Rifle, Pistol        5L

Platoon Sergeant               Assault Rifle                   5L

1st Squad (Tac 5)

Squad Leader                    Assault Rifle                   5L

Gunner                             Belt-fed LMG                 5

Loader                              Assault Rifle                   5

6 Riflemen                       Assault Rifle                    5

2nd Squad (Tac 5)         As first squad

3rd Squad (Tac 5)

Squad Leader                    Assault Rifle                   5L

Gunner                             MMG                              5

Loader                              Assault Rifle                   5

5 Riflemen                       Assault Rifle                    5

Sniper                              Self-loading rifle              5

Here (with judicious use of Green Stuff to convert some Russian-style jackboots to ankle boots) are a couple of squads and the platoon HQ to be going on with:

The platoon command element consists of the pistol-armed officer and the platoon sergeant in the distinctive blue beret.

The squads each have a squad leader (single figure on a 2 pence piece), a machine-gun team with PKM light machine-gun (two figures on a 2 pence piece) and six guys with AKMs (on pennies) one of whom has an underslung grenade launcher. 

I do have a few more figures to add and they'll probably end up forming an under-strength third squad. One of the riflemen needs an SVT sniper rifle, which I have, but I'm lacking RPG-7s for each squad.

I don't know who these miniatures are sculpted/sold by. I thought they might be Platoon 20 but I can't see them on the East Front Miniatures website. Now all I need to do is to come up with a suitable scenario to use them.