1:100 Carro Veloce CV.35 II series Italian Tankette

Two men and three tons

The Carro Veloce tankette is one of the smallest tracked combat vehicles ever to reach series production. Two men fitted into it side by side, the driver and the gunner, the armor was only a few millimeters thick and a rotating turret was missing altogether, so the whole vehicle had to be turned. It arose from a British design which Italian industry reworked and developed into a line of its own.

What the second series brought

The difference between the series lies above all in the armament and in the arrangement of the armor plates. The later machines received a pair of machine guns of 8 mm caliber instead of the older weaker pair, and welded joints appeared in the hull where rivets had held before. From the outside this can be told by the shape of the front section and by the cover over the weapons.

Where the tankettes fought

They served practically everywhere Italy was involved: in East Africa, in Spain, in the Balkans, in Greece and on the Eastern Front. Against armored targets they were helpless, but as a reconnaissance vehicle and an infantry escort they lasted a long time.

A model of this size stands on a single hull part and on the tracks, so it can be finished during one evening. For a gaming unit it is usual to build them in groups, because in combat the tankettes moved in clusters and a lone example looks unnatural on a base. The group can be set apart in color simply by giving one vehicle a heavier deposit of dust and leaving another a cleaner surface. The thin armor moreover meant that the machines came back covered in scraped patches, which at a small format is suggested by light stippling along the edges.