Battlegroup42 1.7 - Italian Armour! news

Let us begin with a look into Nimrod's work shop. During the past few months he has been busy working on new equipment for the Italian armoured forces. Like with the three Crusader models he created for the British, a whole series of vehicles, all of them high quality and closing gaps in the Battlegroup42 armoury. The first one is the Carro Armato M11/39, a light infantry support tank which was first built in 1937. It was armed with a 37mm gun in the bow of the hull and dual 8mm BREDA machine guns in a full traverse turret. It saw action in Ethiopia, Northern Africa and the Balkans, and later in the war also in Sicily. The Australian army used some of those tanks which they captured during the battles at Tobruk. They were marked with a big white Kangaroo. Nimrod delivered this skin too so that the M11/39 can also fight for the Australians.

The second addition is the medium tank Carro Armato M13/40, designed as a replacement for the obsolete and too weak M11/39 which it began to replace starting in 1941. Carrying a 47mm cannon and three 8mm BREDA machine guns it was well armed for its time and equal to, sometimes even superior to, British tanks like the Crusader but its underpowered engine limited its capabilities. Despite this weakness the Italian armoured forces achieved quite some success with this model. The M13/40 was used in Northern Africa, the Balkans and Sicily. After the Italians had switched sides in 1943 some of those tanks fought alongside the German Wehrmacht and its allied troops. Nimrod supplied us with four different textures, among them one for the Australians.

At the same time the M13/40 reached the front lines the Italian armoured forces were supplied with a new assault gun which was based on the same chassis and armed with a 75mm howitzer. This tank, designated Semovente 75/18, proved to be very successful due to its quite capable main gun. It fired HE rounds for use against soft targets like gun emplacements as well as AP and HEAT rounds, with the latter being able to destroy allied medium tanks like the M4 Sherman. The 75/18 was therefore not only used by the Italian forces in Northern Africa and Sicily but also by national-Italian forces and the Wehrmacht which equipped whole companies with it and send them to the Eastern front.

Our last new addition for today fills another gap in Battlegroup42, this time in the Italian hand weapon section. Up to now our Italian medics had to use the German MP28 but now they were equipped with the Beretta M1938 sub machine gun. This 9mm weapon proved to be both sturdy and reliable and was loved by the Italian soldiers because of its low deviation. It was the main weapon of Italian paratrooper regiments. Some of those weapons saw active duty until the 1970s. The Wehrmacht and its allies, the Romanian army received large amounts of them during the war. The Beretta was modeled and textured by our infantry weapon specialist RuppDee.

That's it for today from our model section of Battlegroup42. We really hope that we've watered your mouth regarding the new version 1.7. We can assure you that we still have some surprises for you up our sleeves which we will present you soon. As usual we'd like to point out again that we're always looking out for talented new team members. If you're interested please visit our forum on www.battlegroup42.de