Another of the larger submissions I did for last year's painting challenge was a
force of the Regio Esercito or Royal Italian Army in North Africa
consisting of a mix of Perry and Warlord Games miniatures, tanks and
assault guns from Blitzkrieg Miniatures, an armoured car from Tamiya,
and five 'toy soldier' trucks. While the North African campaign has
always interested me, I didn't think I could justify painting up more
Germans and Brits since I already had a sizeable force of each of those
for Northwest Europe. Then fellow Conscript, Dallas E,
painted up some DAK and 8th Army, which was the tipping point. However,
not wanting to just duplicate armies he had, I opted for Italians. I now
have a force of a 43 man platoon of four sections and a platoon
headquarters, a company headquarters, two machine gun teams, two mortar
teams, an anti-tank gun, two tanks, two assault guns, an armoured car,
and five trucks.
First
up are the tanks and armoured cars. The armoured car is a 1/48 scale
Tamiya kit, and the rest are from Blitzkrieg Miniatures. The M13/40 is a
resin casting, while the rest of the tracked vehicles are 3D prints.
The latter are much crisper in terms of the detail compared to the resin
casting, but they had a lot of supports to clean away, especially
around the road wheels. After all the vehicles had been assembled, they
were primed with Army Painter Desert Yellow from a rattle can. They were
then painted with various sand coloured acrylics and given a wash of
Citadel Seraphim Sepia. Tracks were painted using Vallejo German Camo
Black Brown, followed by a dry brush of Gun Metal. Finally everything
got liberal washes of Vallejo Wash FX Desert Dust.
Built on the chassis developed for
the L6/40, the Semovente 47/32 was an easy-to-produce tank hunter built
as a stopgap measure to combat enemy armour. Mounting the excellent
Elefantino anti-tank gun in an open-topped chassis gave the Italian
forces some much-needed mobility in their anti-tank assets. The tank
hunter initially fared well in the western desert, but lack of an
armoured crew compartment became a glaring drawback in the system's
design.
After witnessing the success of
the German StuG in Europe, the Italians decided a tank of comparable
design was needed. By 1942, the Semovente 75/18 was fighting for the
Italians in North Africa, where it would distinguish itself as one of
the nation's best tank designs. The 75/18 had a relatively modern gun,
thicker armour than any of the M-series tanks, and it proved quite
successful in service, capable of destroying all but the heaviest Allied
armoured vehicles.
Italy's AB41 was the most-produced armoured car of the Italian armed forces. The Autoblindo 41 was
produced by Fiat-Ansldo and saw service in several theatres, most
notably in Africa. It was armed with a 20 mm Breda 35 autocannon and a
coaxial 8 mm machine gun in a turret similar to the one fitted to the
Fiat L6/40, and another hull mounted rear-facing 8 mm machine gun. It
also featured two driving positions, allowing the vehicle to travel
effectively in either direction.
The Carro Armato M13/40 was
designed to replace the M11/39 in the Royal Italian Army at the start of
the Second World War. It was the primary tank used by the Italians it
their armoured divisions. The design was influenced by the British
Vickers 6-Ton and was based on the modified chassis of the earlier
M11/39. Its 47mm gun was superior to the British 2-pdr, but easily
outmatched with the introduction of heavier tank guns such as the 6-pdr
and US 75mm.
The L6/40 was a light tank used by
the Italian army from 1940 through the Second World War. It was
designed by Ansaldo as an export product, and was adopted by the Italian
Army when officials learned of the design and expressed interest. It
was the main tank employed by the Italian forces fighting on the Eastern
Front alongside the L6/40-based Semovente 47/32 self-propelled gun.
L6/40s were also used in the North African campaign. Its main armament
was the 20 mm Breda 35 autocannon.
Next up are five trucks to
transport my troops through the desert. These were part of a joint
purchase with Dallas E, who found a source of these 'cheap' plastic
trucks on line. In the end, they didn't turn out to be as cheap as
expected/hoped. These were available from Walmart for a while, but can now be found on AliExpress.
They are generic 'army trucks' that have a bit of a 'Chevrolet 30cwt'
vibe to them. I didn't paint any national markings on them as I thought
they could be used for either side in North Africa. They were painted
with the same method I used for the armoured vehicles.
Finally we come to the troops.
These are primarily Perry Miniatures Italians with sun helmets, plus a
Italian Support Group boxed set consisting of a headquarters, machine
gun team, and mortar team from
Warlord Games. When I ordered the Perry Miniatures I was having some
trouble with their website when I wanted to order multiples of the same
figure pack. It kept increasing the number of packs of the previous
choice. I thought I have corrected everything, but when the shipment
arrived, instead of three packs of riflemen and one command pack, I got
the reverse. (D'0h!). In addition, the Warlords support group all
had steel helmets on, and I wanted all my troops in sun helmets. Dallas
E had some left over helmets from his Perry DAK figures, and I had
extra arms, pouches, and rifles left over from my Warlord Soviets and
Blitzkrieg Germans. A bit of slicing, dicing, and gluing converted extra
officers and NCOs to riflemen, and all but three officers to sun
helmets. For painting I followed Sonic Sledgehammer's method for desert Italians,
with some variation here and there on the order of painting, and the
choice of colours. I used a lot of Citadel Seraphim Sepia wash on this
project.
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| Warlord HQ group of two officers, a medic and a radioman |
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| Support Weapons |
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| Perry 47/32 Elefantino anti-tank gun |
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| Perry and Warlords Breda 5C 6.5mm medium machine guns |
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| Perry and Warlords 81/14 Model 35 medium mortars |
Last up is a 43 man platoon
consisting of a 3-man headquarters, and four 10-man sections each with a
section commander equipped with a Beretta 9mm submachine gun, a two-man
team with a Breda 30 6.5mm light machine gun, and seven riflemen with
either a Carcano M1891/28 or Carcano M1938 carbine. Some of the riflemen
that were converted from officer figures are carrying either
Moisin-Nagant carbines or Mauser rifles that were left over from my
boxes of Warlord Games Soviet Winter Infantry or German Blitzkrieg
Infantry. (See if you can pick out all the conversions in the rifle
sections.)
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| Italian infantry platoon of four sections and a headquarters |
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| Platoon HQ. The man on the right originally had a Beretta SMG |
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No. 1 Section
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No. 2 Section
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No. 3 Section
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No. 4 Section
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These troops are still waiting for
their combat initiation on the table top. Hopefully they can get an
opportunity to face off against Dallas's 8th Army blokes this winter.
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