Eaglemoss Military Watches Collection.

Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, began on 22 June 1941. The ambition to expand territory and ultimately take over the Russian oil and gas fields, whilst dismantling the communist party rule, was first envisaged in Hitler's autobiography, Mein Kampf.
Despite cordial relations between Germany and Russia during the 20s and 30s, and the signing of a Non-Aggression pact in 1939, Soviet Spies embeded in Germany were reporting on an immanent invasion, and Stalin's own Generals were reporting that German troops and weapons were massing on Russia's Border, despite these warnings Stalin was sure that nothing would happen until Britain had first been defeated. Germany Launched the assault on Russia with nearly 3million men, 3250 tanks, 7000 artillery weapons and 2700 Aircraft.
On Paper Russia's armed forces had a huge numerical advantage, 5 million men and 23,000 tanks, but recent purges amongst the officer ranks to remove those who opposed the communist regime had left the military badly short of good leadership, and they were poorly trained and badly equipped to fight the precision warfare of the Nazi machine. It was not until Georgy Zhukov exerted his great organisational mind that the Soviet Red Army became better organised and began to counter the German attacks effectively with relatively cheap, easy to manufacture equipment, like the highly successful T34 tank.
It seems odd to us today, but early in the conflict the United States supplied a lot of subsidiary equipment to the Soviet Union, including Watches. Russian Officers were also issued watches from The First Moscow Watch Factory, this factory was evacuated in 1941 to Zlatoust, due to the German advance, and a second Factory was set also up at Chistopol in 1942




Case
Polished, 42.7mm case, 47.5mm with the*large onion style crown, 9.4mm deep.
51mm lug to lug. 18mm wide lugs
Interior aperture 36.7mm across, 9.4mm deep. 7.5mm Crown, 36mm flat glass
Dial
36.5mm white dial. Black printed rail track minutes scale with black squares at 5 minute points
Hours indicated with Outlined Arabic numerals from 1 through 12 inclusive, and in a smaller font the numbers from 13 to 24
Skeleton type, black hours and minutes hands with white infill and a slim black seconds hand.
Strap
Black PU leather strap 18mm wide at the lugs narrows to 16mm polished buckle. approx. fitting 180-220mm



In spite of the issue focusing on the ground war in Russia, the watch back is stamped with "Soviet Air Force Pilot"