The last of my 15mm Desert Pocket Armies is finished (or as finished as any wargaming project is likely to be). This lot are the Italians, essential for any North Africa game, and I suspect I'll end up using them in Russia, despite the tropical uniforms.
A rather more packed box than the British and German stage one armies. Unlike the British and Germans, stage one for the Italians is likely to be nearly all the stuff I need as I've been collecting odds and ends of Italian stuff for decades, starting with the L3s which have seen extensive service with my 15mm SCW Nationalists. There may be scope to add some more bits (more artillery perhaps, maybe some CNN troops) but not as much as the British and Germans.
The big effort with this army was all the infantry. There are actually only four rifle 'companies' (in Command Decision/Rapid Fire terms), but by the time you've added in the support weapons, HQs etc it all adds up to quite a bit. There are some Bersaglieri bases in there as well, as these are all Peter Pig Figures, they only do Bersaglieri in feathered helmets, not the big hats, so they are a bit harder to make out.
Various odds and ends, some engineers, motorcycles, HQs and some 20mm Solothurn Anti-Tank 'rifles', although tbh, they are more like a shoulder fired anti-tank gun. The Motorcyclist are PP Germans with the helmets filed into a more Italian shape.
The artillery comprise a pair of BPM 75mm guns (although they are listed on the website as 100mm howitzers) and a pair of Peter Pig 47mm guns. The crews are all PP.
Softskins. The larger trucks have been feature on the blog before, but I've added a couple of BPM Saharianas, an old PP Citroen painted sand and the inevitable truck mounted 90mm AA gun. A huge model, supplied by BPM.
Most of the armour I had already, I just added a BPM Autoblinda and another QRF M13. The M13s are all QRF, the Semovente is Peter Pig, the L6s are QRF and the L3s are Peter Pig. I made up sabot tops for the L6s to convert them into 47mm Semovente, the conversion was featured in an earlier post.
I'll feature some of the individual models as part of the ongoing modelling posts. I rattled through this lot in about 10 days, and realised that I'd really struggled to get the Germans done as I'd still had a touch of Long Covid which had affected my ability to focus. Seems to be much better now anyway.
Very nice and neat. My CTV have seen service in North Africa from time to time in a game of NQM. I'm tempted to do some early war North African Brits to do the pre Afrika Korps campaigns.
ReplyDeleteWeve done quite a few games in the Operation Compass period, and they have a very different feel to the later desert battles. Almost prewar in many ways.
DeleteAvanti Italiani!
ReplyDeleteThe Italians are a versatile force if you ignore things like headwear; the pith helmet places them in early North Africa and for SCW most should be in Adrian helmet. After that the main choice is desert or European uniforms (SCW adds WW1 colonial uniforms).
Tanks and guns are fairly ubiquitous. L3, M13 (pass for M14), softskins consistent throughout the war.
Some nice work Martin.
Neil
Thanks. I've always had a soft spot for the Italians in WW2 (a very interesting country to play in Third Reich!) and Il pleased I've finally done them justice in 15mm. I have a bunch of generic infantry in Adrian helmets who stand in for all sorts of people, includingvthe earlier Italians.
DeleteNone of mine are in Adrian helmets. Don't know how I missed that when researching them for the SCW.
DeleteTo be fair, the M33 seems to have replaced the Adrian by the end of the war. Was still used by reserve units in WW2. Interestingly, the early uniform worn was surplus WW1 Italian tropical and may have been more brown than sand. Grey- green overcoats were worn.
DeleteThe only accurate SCW Italians for the early war, were those from the OOP Late Queen range.
I have some Peter Pig greatcoat Italians and separate Adrian heads awaiting conversion.
Neil