Very odd. This is something one sees very often on low-performance machines because the engine changes models to limit the poly count. I'm assuming this isn't your issue, since the soldiers are whole in BI/RTR. Very odd indeed.
As Napoleon said, you might try shaders. More generally, try mucking about with high-performance graphics settings. My guess is that for some reason your vidcard is getting lost in translation for 1.5 and the engine is compensating by keeping all your graphics settings but limiting the polys with this pointy-leg thing.
Sorry I can't be more specific.
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