Italian Cavalry Scout

Historical Background

In 1938, the Italian Royal Army (Regio Esercito), issued a request for a new armoured car to replace the Lancia IZM, basically a souped-up version of the 1918-vintage Lancia-Ansaldo cars. The IZM was however underpowered and had poor off-road capability. Ansaldo-Fossati came up with a four-wheel drive, four-wheel armoured car concept. The new vehicle need to fulfil the requirement for a fast and versatile car for colonial policing and and the army's cavalry. Production soon started in 1940 and the vehicle was given the designation Autoblinda 40, or AB 40. The main features of the AB 40 include all-riveted hull with sloped armour, rear-mounted engine and twin machineguns in a turret. The wheels can have the tyres removed and the car be used on rails. The two spare tyres were hanged in the way so that they can rotate freely and help in navigating rough terrain. The four-wheel drive, while revolutionary, was however quite troublesome. The AB 40 was however produced in small quantity: just 25. They were used during the Italian 'invasion' of southern France in June 1940 and afterwards they were sent to Libya.

In the Fall of 1940 however, a new requirement was issued. A modified version of the AB 40 was required, equipped with a 20mm Breda modello 35 autocannon. The easiest solution was to replace the original turret with the turret from the L6/40 light tank. Tests of the prototype was promising and the AB 40 on the production line was replaced with this version, dubbed AB 41 (after the year of first production, 1941).  Apart from the 20mm cannon, the AB 41 was armed with a co-axial 8mm Breda modello 38 machinegun. Another Breda 38 (a carryover from the AB 40) was retained on the rear of the crew compartment. A total of 456 20mm and 1,992 8mm rounds were carried. With the additional weight of the turret, a more powerful Fiat SPA ABM 6-cylinder petrol engine was needed. Rated at 120hp, the new engine allowed the Ab 41 to maintain a top speed of over 70km/h and the higher torque also offered better off-road capability. Range was a respectable 250 miles. The complicated drive system provided six forward and four reverse gears and to fully exploit the latter, a second driver was placed at the rear of the crew compartment (also a carryover from the AB 40). All AB 41s were equipped with radio and a long aerial, making them useful scout vehicles. Armour was also good (15mm for the front plate). The vehicle was not without flaws however, chiefly the one-man turret, unprotected fuel tank and the lack of interior bulkhead, making life unbearable for the crews in North Africa.

The AB 41 was used in all theatres of war in which Italian troops took part: North Africa, the Balkans, Eastern Front and the Italian homeland. They were issued to cavalry, Bersaglieri and the Polizia dell'Africa Italiana (Italian African Police). Like the AB 40, the AB 41 can be converted for railway patrol duty using a conversion kit, resulting in the Ferrovaria (railroad) version. The Ferrovaria was especially useful in the Balkans where the partisans were actively resisting the Axis occupiers. Following the Italian Armistice in September 1943, 57 AB 41s were confiscated by the Germans who renamed them Panzerspahwagen AB41 201(i). There are only two vehicles derived from the AB 41. The AS 42 Sahariana was basically a turretless AB 41 and developed for operations in hot and dry (read North Africa) combat conditions. Another version was the AB 43, armed with a  47mm Canone da 47/32 M35 anti-tank gun. Just 12 of the latter were produced before the armistice. Another 120 were built for the Germans. In total, 550 AB 41s were built.

The Kit

Despite being the most important Italian armoured car during World War 2, the AB 41 was not kitted by a mainstream manufacturer until 2005 when Italeri announced their kit. The kit comprised of 140 parts in tan-coloured plastic plus six rubber tyres. The usual decal sheet and instructions are there but no PE parts are included. However like Tamiya kits, the Italeri AB 41 has enough details to satisfy the average modeller. The details are well-moulded and I am very pleased with the embossed details on the side wall of the tyres. However, while all the doors and hatches can be posed open, there is no interior detail. The painting instructions are in colour and separate from the assembly instructions. The kit provide markings for five vehicles, including two German vehicles for those who won't build anything without a Black Cross (even the box art shows the German option!):

1. German Army, Aufkl.Abt.236, 162nd (Turkische) Infantry Division, Italy, early 1944
2. German Army, I./Elite-Polizei regiment, Bolzano, Italy, Summer 1944
3. Regio Esercito, Unknown unit, Sicily 1943
4. Regio Esercito, Lancireri di Montebello Regt, Rome, September 1943
5. Repubblica Sociale, Gruppe Corazzato Leonessa, Torino, Italy, early 1945

Construction

The build started at the chassis and Italeri provided a rather simple affair which consists of a horizontal 'pan', two sides and the ends. There are just small lips to align the parts but in the end, two u-shaped parts stabilises the joint. Next up were the suspension and steering mechanism. They are simpler than most other kits but care has to be taken since parts B8 and B9 have a tight fit and might snap if one is not careful (I end up enlarging the holes). More parts for the suspension were added to the kit. Again Fit of Parts B13 and B14 is fairly tight. To ease handling, Parts B15 and B16 were cemented directly to the chassis, rather than cementing them to Parts B13 and B14 first. This proved to be a blessing as it allows me to adjust the parts with Parts B18 and B20 (the brake drums). Should they be cemented as instructed, the brake drums might not fit properly. The suspension was finished by adding the drive shafts. While there is a notch at each wheel end of the assembly for positive placement, there were none for inside the chassis. The best way to fit this is by cementing the wheel ends and align the ends inside the chassis.

The hull of the kit was made up of multiple panels, rather than a basic shell onto which smaller panels are attached. First parts C22 and C24 are cemented to their respective sides of the walls. As the separate panels may lead to alignment issues, Italeri provided four cylindrical stiffeners, to be placed between the walls. These add some rigidity while building up the hull. However the locating pins are slightly too long and need to be trimmed. The bottom rear hull panel was then cemented. Before assembling the rest of the hull panels, the rear-facing machinegun was fitted into the upper rear panel; the design of the parts allow the machine gun to swivel freely in its place. There is a bit of fit problem between Parts 30C and 31C but a quick sanding work eliminated the problem. The rest of the panels did not have good fit but the open bottom made for some flexibility, allowing the joints mated better through finger pressure. For those who want to show off the headlights, you will be disappointed with this kit as the lenses and glasses are solid ( I simply place the covers in the closed position). There are a number of ejector pin marks but they are mostly at the wheel arches (all six of them) and are judged to be mostly hidden, so I left them as they were. 

Work on the turret was started by assembling the main armament. The breech end of the gun and also the machine gun is fairly simple but not really an issue as I'm going to close off all the hatches. The muzzle of the gun is separate and require care when cementing it to avoid seams. Apart from the machine gun and the main gun (and the telescopic sight), there isn't anything much inside the turret. There is a turret traverse wheel but since the turret hatch would be closed, I didn't put it in place. The wheels remain separate from the body and the tyres were not fitted to the wheels at this time. It's off to the paint shed.

Painting And Decalling

Italeri, like Tamiya, has a rather annoying habit (depending on your POV, really) of having only their paints in the colour callouts. Checking on instruction sheets available online, I painted the model a basic layer of 2:1 Tamiya XF-60 Dark Yellow and XF-59 Desert Yellow plus 20% white for scale effect. Afterwards it was time to decide which markings to use. The German vehicles were rejected out of hand, leaving the Italians. The 'Black Shirt' vehicle is simple, without camouflage patterns but para-military organisations are not really my cup of tea. That left the the two Army vehicles. I finally chose the Sicily-based vehicle as the pattern is less confusing than the other. The green is painted using a 60/40 mix of XF-65 Field Grey and XF-58 Olive Green while XF-64 Red Brown was used for the brown. Aftwerwards, the decals were applied and as usual the decals perform flawlessly. A thin layer of XF-57 Buff was then applied all over the model to 'tie-up' the colours.

Finishing

The smaller parts can now be fixed to the model. Due to some rather clumsy cutting, I clipped off the lower part of one of the horns; I however have run out of putty and reluctantly have to leave it as it is. Another clumsy handling resulted in one of the width indicator snapping off, and again, the carpet monster quickly grabbed it as it hit the floor. Replacing one meant replacing both of the indicators. Using the surviving piece as a guide, I cut 0.5mm plastic rod to size, drill a hole in each of the indicator bases and use leftover balls from a Legend Productions Merkava III update set. It look smaller than the original but perhaps it is more to scale. The pioneer tools were painted and fixed onto their places Finally the exhaust, after being painted Burnt Iron was fitted. Pin wash was then applied. The wheels and tyres were assembled and afterwards, I applied Tamiya Weathering Master Sand all over the wheels. Once completed, the wheels were mounted on the model.

Conclusion

Despite a number of issues (admittedly they are minor), the AB 41 kit has good enough details overall. Italeri are also to be commended for producing a model of a vehicle many mainstream manufacturers ignore - because of the lack of Black Crosses and unpronouncable names (even Tamiya, who has a licensing agreement with Italeri, only adopt the follow-on AB 43 kit, as the vehicle was almost exclusively used by the Germans!). The simple construction makes it very attractive and I believe there is a number of aftermarket goodies that can be used to spruce up this kit.