Red Army issue body armor

[RedHorseman25]

Tovarischi;

I have a question about the Red Army plate armor. I recently got some from a friend in the former SU, and it is in fairly good shape. I plan to restore it for display.

My question is this. Does anyone have pictures, drawings or a manual description of the armor, and how it was held together, and attached to the wearer for use?

Mine is a multi-segmented front plate set only (no back armor). There appear to be riveted leather straps (only the end is present) for attaching to the wearer, and there are loops (what I know as "footman loops") on some of the segments which I assume (I know about assuming) allowed the use of small leather belt like straps to hold the segments together, and adjust the length for fit.

Any other info will be greatly appreciated.

Boridin

[Adrian Stevenson]

Hi Boridin, and welcome ot the forum!

What you have is the SN38 body armour, the so called "Leningrad Pattern", as it is most commonly found on that front.

I have a couple of sets of this myself. It is held together with small leather tabs as you suspected. Additional leather straps are used to fasten it to the body.

Please drop me a line with your e mail address and I will send you some pictures of a restored set. I cannot post them here for copyrite reasons.

Next year I am going to have a go at reproducing a set of this body armour. Last year I had several sets of SN42 body armour made.

Cheers, Ade.

[RedHorseman25]

Adrian;

E-mail sent.

Spaceba

Boridin