The Guards title wasn’t issued. It was earned.

September 1941. After the Yelnya offensive, the first time the Red Army pushed the Wehrmacht back, four rifle divisions were redesignated the 1st through 4th Guards Rifle Divisions. From then on, the Guards title was the highest honor a Soviet unit could earn. It came with priority for equipment and replacements, better pay, and the hardest assignments on the front.

These Guards are dressed for winter. The telogreika, the quilted cotton-padded jacket soldiers called the vatnik, kept the Red Army fighting through four Russian winters. It wasn’t elegant. It worked.

What you’re getting:

• Guards officer — PPS-43 submachine gun with folding stock, officer rank insignia, Guards badge, pistol holster. The PPS-43 was designed by Alexei Sudayev and built inside besieged Leningrad: simpler, lighter, and faster to make than the PPSh.
• Assault soldier — PPSh-41 with 71-round drum, telogreika, drum magazine pouches
• Rifleman — Mosin-Nagant M91/30, quilted telogreika, winter combat loadout
• Infantryman — SVT-40 semi-automatic rifle, quilted telogreika, equipment pouches. The Guards badge is under that coat somewhere.
• 100% pad-printed — zero stickers