Steel helmet SH-36 "halkhingolka", 1938

An extremely rare steel helmet in almost excellent collectible condition. 95% preserved the original colorful coating and completely type 2 star. Acquired several years ago in Finland, it is a Finnish trophy of the 1939-40 war. In such preservation, it is practically not found on sale. The only negative is that the pink sponge inside the balaclava has been lost (apparently, the helmet owner tried to increase its size). Guarantee of authenticity.

SH-36 (also known as "khalkhingolka") is an individual means of protection of a serviceman of the Armed Forces of the USSR, a steel helmet of the 1936 model. The first Soviet-made steel helmet adopted by the Red Army. In other sources, the name of the helmet is found, during its development, "The Red Army helmet of the steel model of 1935". Personal protective equipment of the Red Army and the Red Army, was widely used in the Armed Forces by the Soviet Union during the battles on Khasan and Khalkhin Gol, in the Polish campaign of the Red Army, in the Soviet-Finnish War and in the initial period of the Great Patriotic War. Its use by Soviet soldiers of some units during the Soviet-Japanese War in 1945 was also noted. The SH-36 was worn like all other helmets with a balaclava.

In the 1920s and 1930s, the Red Army used helmets of the "Adrian's Helmet" type, which appeared in the Russian Army in 1916, as well as helmets of the M17 type — in relatively small quantities. Designed in 1929, the M29 helmet, as well as the M30 — 1930, never went into production. In mid-1934, the People's Commissariat of Defense of the USSR issued a task to develop a steel helmet for the Red Army, corresponding to the conditions of modern combined-arms combat. In the same 1934, a prototype submitted for consideration to the military leadership was personally tested by Marshal of the Soviet Union S. M. Budyonny, chopping a helmet with a saber. On his own initiative, the helmet adopted as a result received wide side fields designed to protect the shoulders of the fighter from a chopping blow from top to bottom (the fields were supposed to deflect the blade from the shoulder).[source not specified 267 days] In 1935, the Lysvensky Metallurgical Plant began production of a new helmet designed by Schwartz, adopted in 1936 and designated SH-36.

The new helmet received an original hemispherical shape with a protruding visor and side fields-slopes. His silhouette resembled a German steel helmet. The SH-36 was the first helmet developed and put into mass production in the USSR. The SS-36 received its baptism of fire during the war in Spain, where it was supplied to Republicans and inter-brigades. In the summer of 1938, steel helmets were used during the fighting at Lake Hassan. According to the results of the analysis of wounds received by the Red Army servicemen during the fighting near Lake Khasan, it was found that the presence of a helmet allowed to reduce the mortality of the Red Army servicemen from skull wounds to 5.8% (while during the First World War, the mortality from skull wounds of the Tsarist army servicemen who did not have metal helmets was 50%). In the future, it was actively used by the Red Army in the battles on Khalkhin-Gol, where it received the nickname "khalkhingolka", as well as in the Winter War and in the Polish campaign in 1939. However, in the course of its application, a significant number of shortcomings were revealed. So, wide fields created a "sail effect" and hindered the movement of the soldier, and a large visor reduced the view. It was for these and other reasons that in 1939 work began on the next helmet, which later received the name SH-39, then SH-40. Starting in 1940, the Red Army began gradually replacing the SH-36 with helmets of a new model, but the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War pushed this replacement, which is why the SH-36 was used mixed with the SH-40 by Soviet soldiers until about 1943. At the same time, some of the Soviet soldiers used this helmet during the Soviet-Japanese War in August — September 1945, which there is a lot of evidence in the newsreels shot by Soviet documentary filmmakers. In particular, this is reflected in the 19th series of the documentary "The Unknown War" (USA-USSR, 1978).