S**tboxes, or Italian Tankettes

In addition to my massive Flames of War Italian companies, I wanted to get some non Battlefront FOW miniatures so I could model early war forces or really, really crappy tanks.

My solution: 3 Old Glory Carro Armato M11/39s (MG turret and a 37mm gun in the hull) and 6 Peter Pig Carri Veloce L3/35 tankettes. The Italians called them light tanks or fast tanks (the literal translation of Carri Veloce). Armament: 2 8mm Modello 38 Machine Guns. Height: 4 feet, crew two. Tiny bastards:

Turns out the Flames of War website included specs for them, they use the twin MG rule, 0 side, 0 top, and 1 rear armor, and counts as half tracked. Essentially an AB-41 armored car with the MGs of the M14/41 tank. Still, it's appropriate. My six are painted in Russian front colors, but now I want 12 more for my early 1940 North Africa set, six with MGs and six as "controcarros" or anti tanks, fitted with 20mm Solothorn S-18/1000 antitank rifles.

You know, it's hard to believe that Italy went into the war like this. They had 2,000 of these "casa di mortes" or death boxes, did not get true Medium tanks until the year they entered the war in 1940, and total production was something like several hundred in a span when the U.S. produced several thousand. Not to mention that the Carro Armato M15/42, the best Italian tank of the war (which barely saw service and only in small numbers) carried a 47mm Gun and weighed 15 tons, in an era when the American Medium Tank M4, the famed "Sherman" that was reputed to catch fire every time it was hit, carried a 75mm Gun and weighed 35 to 37 tons.

That's why I game the Italians, they're underdogs and just interesting. Not to mention they switched sides, and like the Russians saw horrible reprisals at the hands of the Germans. Just wiki the Massacre of the 33a Divisione fanteria Acqui.