At Odessa this year we had an embedded news crew with the Soviet unit taking video of us for use in a news story on Russia 1, the Russian news station. Wednesday this week they finally published the story. Take a look:

Click here to go to the website with the video

Here’s some pictures Rob took of the weekend. I was trying out a medic impression, and I think I have it just about right.

This past weekend was the WWII weekend at the Collings Foundation in Stow, MA. The Collings Foundation owns  grass airstrip west of Boston and does a WWII weekend every year. This year, for the very first time, they included Soviet troops in their battle, and invited the 3rd Rifle Div. to come and play.

Throughout the weekend, we put on 4 staged battles for the public, including Nazi and American armor, airplanes, and other vehicles. We also sat around in camp and talked to the public about our knowledge of WWII.

It recently dawned upon me that I didn’t post those high-res unit pictures from Odessa. Well, here they are!

That’s all until it gets cold again!

After I got home from Penn State, I had a little time on my hands, and a particularly ugly finish on my newly acquired m44. So having nothing better to do, I decided to strip off the Soviet issue shellac and refinish it. All told I put about 10 hours of work into this stock, but the vast majority of the process was waiting, which took about a week for everything to settle in.

This is how the rifle looked before the process started.

Yeah, pretty crappy, I know.

So I went out and found this excellent guide to refinishing milsurp rifles, and followed it to the letter.

Here’s my stock in the “driftwood” phase.

And finally, all finished.

I really like the way it came out. It even feels nicer. And, best of all, gave me something to do for a few days.

I just got back from a weekend in Odessa, New York, where I joined our comrades from the 3rd Rifle Division in what was probably the most fun tactical I’ve been at in a long time. I even got to sleep for once! I’m posting the pictures I have below, more to come probably.