1/144 M13 / 40 Carro Armato Italian by Panzer DepotNew production, 2x Colour Options.
Apparently quite a long lived little number this, over 700 built and still in existance in 1963 in Iraq (and used by "You know who, to Seize Power")
Obvioulsy in its WWII timeline, it mainly figured in the North Africa Campaigns. - it must be said that history was not really kind to this little (sorry, medium) tank.
Those interested in the Beda Fomm episode may be interested to note that the Ambush Blitz War game rules (optimised for 1/144 and compatible) has just published a Beda Fomm campaign update for this scenario! see 1/144 Ambush Blitz yahoo Forum
Italian tanks are a much overlooked subject that even in larger scales has to be a fairly niche product area.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_M13/40
Available: January 2010 (now!)
http://www.panzerdepot.com/eshop/catalog/index.php
3 comments:
Other than the occasional Fairy resin kit, Italian AFVs have been sparse on the ground in 1/144. Nice to see Panzer Depot keeping up its prodigious output with plenty of variety.
Now what about an M11/39, Autoblinda AB40 and M75/18 Semovente (sorry, Anon!)?
Considering that they came out in 1940-41 M13-series tanks were "almost" on par with other countries' models.
The long 47mm gun was actually longer ranged and heavier-hitting than german 37mm and medium 50mm guns and definitely best than British 2pdr (40mm) it had to face.
But it had narrow tracks, bolted armour (as opposed to welded or cast) whose rivets could come loose and ricochet around in the crew compartment if it hard enough by an enemy shell, and the turret was a 2-man model so the commander had to double as gunner.
Italy had not the industrial resources to move quickly onto something better so they had to soldier on until 1943 (the squabble between the "saharian" crusader copy or the P26/40 didn't help either).
Mussolini stood up to hitler over Austria and begged the Brits and the French to intervene but they blew him off, the allies cause Il Duce to switch to the Nazis.
Italy had no business fighting in WWII. The gutless 47mm on both the M11/39 & M11/40 could not penetrate anything over 25mm, it couldn't operate cross country and had the worst reliability of any combatant of WWII. It was no wonder that Rommel kept them road bound in his sweeping maneouvers in 1941 because they couldn't keep up. FYI, why did Rommel succeed brilliantly against WAvell? ULTRA intercepts. Rommel was ordered both by the Italians & His boss Kesselring to sit tight and wait for reinforcements. Smiling that Rommel got spanked, WAvell diverted forces to Greece and Syria. Then Rommel attacked and rolled the British screening force up.
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