Semovente 75/18 M40 – M41
Italian WW II Self-Propelled Gun

Italeri 1/72 Scale

Reviewed by Glen Porter

Summary

FirstLook

The Semovente M40 was an Italian self-propelled gun based on the less than successful Carro Armato M 13/40 Tank. It was much more useful due to the performance of it's 75mm gun which gave it an advantage over most Allied Armour. The M41 was the same vehicle with a more powerful diesel engine.

Another in Italeri's long list of re-released Ex-Esci kits. In the Summary, I mentioned this to be an Ex-Esci kit as a disadvantage to show it as not being a new moulding. The main advantage of most Esci kits is that they have never been done by any-one else in this scale. However, many, including this one, are well up to today’s standards of detail and mould quality, in fact, the only fault I could find with this kit is the soft one-piece tracks and I will say more on this later.

Click the thumbnails below to view larger images:

The “A” sprue contains the lower hull including engine deck, suspension, road wheels, drive sprockets, return and idler wheels plus some small external parts including separate pioneer tools. These are all beautifully moulded with very little flash, next to no ejector pin marks and heaps of detail.

Sprue “B” has the five piece fighting compartment, detailed 75mm gun including mount, breach and sight, detailed rear bulkhead, drive shaft and gearbox, drivers station and two well sculpted three piece crew figures, one being a seated driver and the other the vehicle commander to stand in the large open hatchway. Unfortunately, they don't give you a gunner figure to complete the three man crew.

As mentioned above, the tracks are rubber bands and although well moulded and detailed a better solution is at hand.

UM, the Ukraine based Braille Armour Manufacturer has recently released sets of L&L tracks for their T 26 tank, one of the few UM kits not to have L&L tracks included. These track are very similar to those used on the M40/41 and the M13/40 Italian tanks but a word of caution, you will need more than one set to equip one of these vehicles. They can be purchased on-line from NKR Models, Tracks & Troops or Squadron plus any other on-line shop that carries UM products for a very reasonable price.

Decals are of the high quality that we have come to expect from Italeri these days and cover four vehicles, three Italian, two in over-all sand in North Africa and one in a very attractive three-colour scheme plus one German, also in three colours near Rome, October 1943.

Even without the UM L&L tracks, this kit could still be made into a very detailed little replica of this very important Italian vehicle.

Now, where's that Esci Wespe Mr Italeri?

Highly Recommended.

Thanks to Italeri for the review sample.