Frontovik Mike

It takes a very hard look to see it, but yes... the star and barrels are are a seperate piece. The fit of the two pieces is very tight and of high quality. I thought it was a single piece buckle for a long time Mike

Ok, here is mine... To be honest, I don't know much about this one. Arty Cadet? Mike B

Leningrad refurbs has been tossed around, but such is hard to substantiate. It is certainly plausible... As far as rarity goes, what might seem likely is probably not the case. These relined helmets are fairly common on the market. I'd say 40-50% of the ones I come across are of this variety. I know that one large cache of these did come from sources in the Baltic in 2001-2002 (which also adds to the Leningrad theory), so for a while they were everywhere. Same for the Ssh-39s of this type as well. This type Ssh-36 should have been of no surprise to someone keeping up with available reference. The first place I ever saw this type helmet was in Shalito's first reference work "Red Army Uniforms of WW2 in Colour Photographs". The small format, Europa Militaria book published by Windrow and Greene. The Ssh-36 shown in the book, best on pages 11 & 25, is clearly one of this type and that book was written in 1992. You can see the replacement chinstrap and the high rivets. Mike B.

This Ssh-36 helmet appears all original... of sorts. This liner type is a replacement liner system that appears to have been added to Ssh-36 and early Ssh-39 helmets due to the original "factory" liners being removed or damaged. The high rivets on your Ssh-36 shell that this system is mounted from were added to the shell so that this same "replacement liner" could be added to either Ssh-36 or 39. A factory original Ssh-36 uses only they low rivet positions. Like the one posted here, these liners are typically made up of unpainted steel liner bands with interior cloth components looking like they came from cut up bedsheets, civilian clothing. While they look superficially like the cloth factory liners, these replacement liners are rather unique. Mike Baskette