Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge XIV #7 - WW2 North Africa Italians

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.

Warlord HQ group of two officers, a medic and a radioman

Support Weapons

Perry 47/32 Elefantino anti-tank gun

Perry and Warlords Breda 5C 6.5mm medium machine guns

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.) 

Italian infantry platoon of four sections and a headquarters

Platoon HQ. The man on the right originally had a Beretta SMG

No. 1 Section

No. 2 Section

No. 3 Section

No. 4 Section

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.

 

Challenge Submission #12 - Soviet Army (Winter) Support Group and T34/76

 

Having completed all my PSC Soviet troops in Summer uniform, it was time to move to those dressed for colder weather in front of the gates to Moscow. I didn't get a huge number of miniatures completed this week as I have been experimenting with different materials to get a 'Winter look' to not only the bases, but the tank as well.

First up is a boxed set of Soviet Army (Winter) Support Group sold by Warlord Games. It consists of a Soviet HQ of two officers, a radioman, and a medic tending a wounded soldier, a Soviet Maxim MMG team, and a Soviet 82mm medium mortar team, all dressed for the cold in a variety of greatcoats, fur hats, felt  winter boots, etc. Each of these groups can be purchased separately, but you save $5 by getting the 'package deal'.

All of the minis were painted using Vallejo acrylics followed by the application of the Army Painter Strong Tone Quick Shade. This is pretty much what I have done up to this point with the Summer Soviets. I used AK Diorama products 'Snow' and 'Snow Sprinkles' on the bases to give them that frosty look.

 

Soviet Army (Winter) Support Group

Soviet HQ (Winter)

Soviet Maxim MMG and 82mm Medium Mortar teams (Winter)

 The second item is a 1/48 scale Tamiya T34/76 in Winter camouflage. The kit was very easy to assemble, even though a lot of the track comes as individual links. The chassis is made of metal, so it actually has some weight to it. 

Once assembled, the tank was primed dark brown, and then painted olive green using Tamiya acrylic paint. Since I already have four T34/76s in various shades of green, I wanted to put this one in Winter colours to go along with my Winter Soviet infantry. I first applied AK Chipping Medium to all the areas that I thought would get a lot of wear and allowed it to dry thoroughly. I then applied a heavily diluted coat of white acrylic paint to give it the appearance of whitewash that was starting to wear off. Once that was completely dry, I used water and a brush to remove the chipping medium to reveal the olive paint underneath. Finally I applied AK Interactive Splattereffects 'Wet Mud' to the tracks and underside to make it look like it had been driven during the Rasputitsa. I may decide to add more 'Wet Mud' to the road wheels, but I am calling it done for now.

 

 This is my first foray into Winter figures, and I am happy with the results. Now that I have the method worked out, I will be ramping up production to meet the quotas of Stalin's latest five-year plan.