21 Italian Tanks & Sporadic Biplanes - Construction

Last year me and my partner in crime Al went along to our first Flames of War tournament Sturm Uber Deutsland held up in Nottingham by the Reluctant Conscripts gaming group. Al took a nicely balanced British infantry list and I put together a list that allowed me to field a German armoured train. Much fun was had by all and neither of us finished last, so when Al mentioned they were running another tournament we decided to go along.

Over the past few years Al has been buying me Italian M14/41 medium tanks with a view of us getting a few early war desert games in one day. Well this tournament was the perfect motivation to get that army built and painted. It also helped narrow down the list I wanted to run. Namely Italians! A quick flick through the various Italian army lists produced an intriguing opportunity. 21 M14/41 tanks supported by nothing but some Fiat Falco biplanes!

 Unfortunately Battlefront seemed to have run out of M4/41 tanks world wide. However Skytrek came to rescue and had some of the old Command Decision versions in stock. There were no photos on the web of the two compared so I thought I'd post a few in case someone else finds this useful in the future. The Skytrek versions are dated and don't sit that brilliantly next to the Battlefront version, but split the platoons by manufacturer and they were fine on the gaming table. (Skytrek left; BF Right.)

In fact as you'll see in the next post the two sit better next to each other once painted up. One day i intend to replace the Skytrek models with Battlefront ones, but it isn't on my priority list.

Both models construction was pretty easy. As always the BF versions did require some attention of the file to cut away excess resin in the track wells on either side.

One thing to note with the Skytrek kits is they do not come with tank commanders, so i used spares that came with the BF kits. The BF kits themselves don't come with AA MGs which is a bit of a pain as I ended up raiding some Plastic Soldier Company German half track kits for spare MG34s to use. Although this isn't historically accurate at 15mm scale the difference isn't noticeable and in fact I'm not actually sure anyone even makes the appropriate Italian versions.

The Biplanes were definitely fiddly in putting together but ultimately worth it. The Battlefront set comes with everything you need including magnets, flight stands and decals for all three planes.

So what would the army be like to use on the gaming table? Well in early war their main gun is pretty average but can take on most other tanks. The Italians seemed to have a policy of literally covering these things in machine guns and that coupled with the high explosive rounds from the main gun means gun teams, infantry and unarmoured vehicles wouldn't last very long in their sights. These tanks also have pretty good armour so could potential take quite a bit of punishment. Their only real downside are their crews. The Italian national special rule means that you only find out the skill level and motivation after deployment and this can vary from the worst levels in the game to just above average. This makes me wonder if perhaps they are slightly over pointed as the points costings don't seem to take into account the widely variable nature of their crews. The biplanes are decent enough air support, although you can only access the sporadic level of support with them, so on paper at least they are more likely to sit out the game without turning up to help than play an active role in the battle. However this seems to be true of most air support options for a lot of armies in early war so generally on par.

Next up: Painting the army.