¹⁄35

M13/40 Ariete Division, Tripoli 01-1941

The Commander

The turret hatch is in two parts, inviting them to be left open, but with no internal detail you need a figure to block the hole. The figure supplied with the kit is quite finely detailed, but his pose and demeanour is rather wooden. Appropriate figures are available from Allarmi, Royal Model and Model Victoria, and they all looked good, but I went for Hornet’s Semovente/Tank Commander (from Historex Agents in the UK). This guy comes with both arms out to either side so he can rest them on the top of a Semovente, but the split hatch of an M13/40 doesn’t really give room for this pose. I made him lean his left elbow on the hatch edge instead; not sure if this would be comfortable while bumping along, but maybe while stationary - and he looks quite casual like this anyway. The arm was taken from Tamiya’s SU-85 crew man, and the hand from the old Tamiya M4A3E8 commander. Photo 18 shows the new left arm but no hand, plus some filler around the shoulders. Unfortunately for me the Hornet hands are quite small, while the Tamiya hand is quite big, but I don’t think it’s too noticeable (though now I’ve drawn your attention it probably is!) The underside of the SU-85 arm was worked on in order to get it to sit down on the hatch lid a little more naturally, and his shoe soles were thinned down to get him to stand at the correct height in the hatch.

Not being an experienced figure painter I took advice from the Mark Bannerman book Modelling Panzer Crew of the Heer, and did the whole thing in oils. The head was kept separate and painted exactly as laid out in the book’s step by step photos; this was the first time I’d painted a detailed face in 1/35 so I wanted learn from someone’s “method” as it were. The eyes of course are the painful part of the process, and on my first attempt I inevitably got one perfect eye, while the other was wild and staring as if diseased or something. Eventually I think I made them reasonably subtle looking. The goggle frames are a pale grey mix as I guessed they were aluminium, while the buckles are Pewter.

After the body was primed, the leather goods were all painted with Burnt Sienna spread as thinly as possible [photo 19]; once totally dry, a Burnt Umber wash gave the aged leather look. The glove seams were added to the back of that new left hand in neat Burnt Umber. The uniform was based on two thin coats of Abteilung Faded Navy Blue. The shadows were done with Lamp Black added to the blue – I think I tried to do two shades of this, though not too sure how well the shaded effect works. Highlights had Flesh Tint added to the blue, again in two progressive shades [photo 20]. All this was done while the oils were semi-wet. Oils dry slowly so in between painting he lived under a glass in the drinks cabinet (appropriately that’s a bottle of Campari he’s next to…) Once dry, the overalls were matt varnished, although I’d be happier if they were more matt than they are.

The Base

Due to the delicacy of the tracks, steps and finish, the model needed a base. I found an odd shaped chunk of sawn-off pine trunk (courtesy of the Queen in fact) and sanded and polished it until it looked acceptably smooth. It’s kind of meant to be a quarter way between looking almost scenic, and three quarters just being a slightly rustic wooden plinth; I quite like the way it presents the model at an angle. The name plate was knocked up in Paint Shop Pro, inkjet printed, then fixed to a styrene plate with double sided tape. Hopefully it all works, and it was virtually free.

Conclusion

You can probably tell that I carried out the research while building the model, and as a result, I included some modifications and enhancements, while missing out others. Apologies are probably due to purists, as I haven’t ended up with as accurate a representation as I might have done. Not all of my assertions may be correct, but I hope that I have interpreted photographs and text from Nicola Pignato’s books correctly, and that it might be of some help or interest to others.

I’m pretty happy with the figure and think that he really adds something to the vehicle, though Hornet should take most of the credit for that as the sculpting of the face is superb and has real character; so much so in fact, that I find the slightly worried expression on his little face almost moving, especially when you consider the very sorry fate that would befall almost all the M13/40s that fought in North Africa.

This model inspired me to find out more about the Italian forces in North Africa, so I read Iron Hulls, Iron Hearts: Mussolini’s Elite Armoured Divisions in North Africa by Ian W Walker (Crowood Press, 2003). Ian Walker’s thesis is that the war in North Africa was Fascist Italy’s colonial war against the British, but that this has been obscured due to the focus of virtually all historical accounts on either the Allied victors, or to almost as great an extent, the Deutsche Afrika Korps. He opens with a fascinating analysis of the context within which Mussolini took Italy to war, followed by detailed descriptions of the campaigns involving the Ariete, Littorio and Centauro Divisions. Military operations can sometimes be recounted in a confusing and / or quite dull narrative, but in contrast I found this book highly readable and very enjoyable. Enough first hand Italian accounts are included in order to maintain a human perspective and there is plenty of evidence along the way to demonstrate how, even at the time, the Italians were sidelined, despite often making up the bulk of the Axis forces.

The kit and both Pignato books were bought from Netmerchants. The tracks and rivets were supplied by SB Models. The Hornet figure came from Historex Agents. Iron Hulls, Iron Hearts was from Amazon.