General-Major's Coat

[Al-muell]

Is this coat OK?
I have feeling there's something wrong with it, but I haven't seen such coat before, so I may be wrong.
The shoulderboards seem to be attached properly, but those collar tabs are sown on in reather crude way.

[DougD]

Its a 1980's generals raincoat, they don't pop up much because there is not a real demend for them. It looks ok, i would rather doubt they are being faked.

DougD

[vikingraider1]

I have a couple of these in my collection and they are coming up on Ebay more and more. They are quite reasonable in price as well and are available for other officer ranks as well. As Doug says I would be very surprised if they are being faked.

[Al-muell]

Thanks
But the fact is that the seller I bougt it from sells gimnastiorkas with wrong shoulderboards and other "more attractive-looking" things, So I wasn't sure it is not another thing like that + tons of medals, most with ribbons attached in a wrong way.
In addition I belive I know of at least 2 Germans comming to that guy (russian) almost every month to purchese a general's everyday uniform (for funny price, ~50$ + ~25$ for cap; parade uniform little more expensive, while others sell it for ~100-200$.), so I would not be surprised If he were making uniforms from original components (I am sure he has acces to those).

[skipper1939]

May I indulge a pet peeve. General-major is a direct and literal translation of the Russian. But it is not a translation to parsible English. In proper English translation the rank is, quite simply, a major general. If one were to use the Russian term while writing in English, then it should be transliterated and set in italics indicating foreign words. It's small thing, but it's rather like spelling Tsar as Czar. It just indicates that the writer doesn't know better. And American dictionaries are not blameless. Sorry, but once a professor always a professor (i.e. knit-picker).

Dr. Bob Clawson, professor emeritus of Russian and Soviet Studies

Na Zapad!

[Al-muell]

Well, I am using a russian term, as I think translating isn't a good idea - not every rank has it's equivalent. The reason why I wrote "general-major" instead of "general-maior" or "gyenyeral'-maior" is that I am used to different transliteration/transscription.
But You are right, that I should have put it in italics

[skipper1939]

Now to the content of the question. Many examples of that coat exist with the shoulder boards but without the general's lapel tabs. I think that was one. Those tabs are a kind of puzzle to attach and I think someone not in on the secret added them not quite corrrectly. But they are certainly the correct tabs and could be re-attached properly to make a perfectly legitimate coat.

Dr. Bob Clawson

[vikingraider1]

Spekaing of pet hates, When people refer to Soviet Generals as either one star-two star etc. This is an American ranking system and most definately not Soviet. The fact that there are one or two stars on the shoulder boards does not denote them as one or two star generals....:rant:

[skipper1939]

The star is the rascal of the military world. A Russian friend (whose father was a general) simply didn't believe that the American army used a white star as a vehicle (and other) logo. Or that the Japanese army had used it as a helmet badge in WW II. As far as he was concerned, the star, of any color or metal, was Imperial Russian and then Soviet. The others were fictions.

Then there is the use of the star in the Polish army. A shoulder boad with three big white stars but a white outline to the board is that of a senior warrant officer! Without the outline, it is a captain.

The American military also refers to rank by E and O. An O-6 is a full colonel. American writers (e.g. Air Force Magazine) sometimes try to equate the same designations to Soviet and now Russian ranks (which has dropped one naval O rank). The results are hilarious.

Indeed, be very careful with cross-cultural ranks.

Dr. Bob Clawson

[Dave]

Originally posted by vikingraider1
Spekaing of pet hates, When people refer to Soviet Generals as either one star-two star etc. This is an American ranking system and most definately not Soviet. The fact that there are one or two stars on the shoulder boards does not denote them as one or two star generals....

I disagree. When non-collectors are discussing ranks of Soviet/Russian generals, I see nothing wrong with the use of "one-star", "two-star", etc. The reason for this is because of 1) both superpowers (i.e. the US and USSR) used a star system of denoting general officers and 2) the rank titles are different... For example, a Lieutenant General (or General Lieutenant) differs greatly between the two nations. For most Americans (and the majority of the world) they have no familiarity with terms such as "General Colonel"... Such a thing does not exist in most armies.

On another topic, there is no need to italicize transliterated words within this forum. There are dozens of terms and, especially, acronyms, that we use on a regular basis that are simply the transliterations of their Cyrillic spellings, such as "RKKA" and "STAVKA". We know what these mean, and it is much easier to use these than to translate the full terms. Likewise, there is no need to italicize these as they are common terms that we know denote to certain areas of the Soviet military.

--Dave

P.S. Dr. Bob - From the literature that I have at hand, to include both American and Russian sources, I would say that you can tell your Russian friend that the United States (quite possibly others, but I can't confirm them) used the star rank to denote general/flag officer rank for a considerable period of time before the Russian military adopted it.