Generalissimus USSR Shoulder Boards

[Tal Inbar]

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[DougD]

Yup, thats the one in the museum. The other was a grey M1943 with sew on boards and collar tabs ( had a fold down collar). Story was that Stalin thought the uniforms were a bit too over the top and declined to wear them.

There were some great looking generals and marshals VP prototypes that were lost in a fire a few years ago in Moscow.

DougD

[ibaya]

I had always thought the there was change in the style of shoulderboards for generals. The shoulderboards used in the Great Patriotic War were silver bullion stars on gold boards, but they were later changed to gold bullion stars, with colored piping outlining the star (red for army generals & marshals, sky blue for the air force) ... am I mistaken?

[kabanchik]

I seem to recall an anecdote by, I believe, General Vionogradov, Stalin's biographer, wherin Stalin is shown several proposed uniforms for the rank of generalissimus, one with gold piping and leg stripes, and Stalin went into a frenzy, calling the proposals too ostentatious, and unbefitting of such a rank. He thereupon proposed that he wear the standard boards of a Marshal of the Soviet Union, but with a unique cut of uniform, hence the stand-and-fall collar, with the red tabs with generals's buttons, in which he was usually photographed and painted. This would seem to coincide with the proletarian philosophy of a man who usually hinted at some higher entity, as when he would refer to himself as "having been instructed" to do this or that, as if he took his orders from a committee above him.
By the way, I really don't need to point out that the first shoulder boards of MSU rank sported stars of SILVER wire, as did all rank stars of combat branches (as opposed to the technical branches, with silver boards and gold stars), until the late 1950's, when the color was changed to gold, as in the illustration from the 1988 regs which Tal posted.

[new world]

kabanchik,

You are talking about one of these Marshal boards, right? These are with the silver wiring, 1943 version:

[DougD]

new world

these exact boards have been discussed in a thread in the uniforms section under the topic Marshals Uniform Fake or Genuine.

http://soviet-awards.addr.com/forum/show...eadid=1588

DD

[Tal Inbar]

I am not so sure about the silver colored star. In the above picture there are traces of gold in the star, and maybe, it was gold in the begining and faded away.

If the gold wire that was used to make the star was not gold, but brass, or gold plated copper, that would make sense.

Tal (and remember, I am NOT a Uniforms expert...)

[DougD]

.....it would seem that some boards did have a very lihgt gold coating, though not gold thread, for the stars. I too have had one or two pairs in where there are clear traces of a gold plating of sorts. I have never seen a set of these boards with the full gold still on them.

DD

[kabanchik]

A correction on my last thread. The general, who wrote the biography of Stalin referred to above, was named Volkogonov, not Vinogradov (I must've been asleep when I wrote that!!). And yes, these boards pictured above are the ones I was talking about, though made of the FINEST materials, as discussed in another thread.

[Tal Inbar]

Several sketches of the coat and uniform for Generalissimus CCCP: