Cromwell Models 1/76 Cannone da 75/27 mod.06

Around the turn of the century, when all major powers were in full swing modernizing their Field Artillery, hurridly following the example of the revolutionary French "75", the Italian Army also followed suite. After trying, without success, to design a gun of their own (which resulted in a obsolete design with no recoil system) the Army instead decided to import a German gun, designed by Krupp.

It was a pretty standard design, with a hydro-spring recuperator, equipped with a shield 4mm thick, and weighing precisely 1 ton emplaced. It could shoot a HE grenade of 6.4kg some 6.8 km. The Shrapnel grenade weighed 6.5kg. The muzzle velocity was 510 m/sec.

The gun made pretty good service during the war. Its performance matched roughly that of the German FK 96 n.A.. The explosive load of the HE grenade was however deemed to be a bit too light. (During the war, this was in some measure remedied by Italy receiving large shipments of ammunition from England and France.) It was used primarily in the standard field artillery batteries, the horse artillery batteries using the 75mm Deport, which was also seen as the better gun of the two.

For detail photos of a surviving Cannone da 75/27 click here! 

Contents of the kit:

The kit comes packed in a ziplock bag, typical of Cromwell, and typical of this company it also lacks all plans. The kit of the gun consists of only 3 parts, all moulded in Cromwells standard light-yellow resin. (Notice that the kit itself is a combo: beside the gun, you also get a very nice kit of the Italian light truck Fiat SPA TL37.)  

As always with Cromwell, the details are sharp and well defined. Notice the shield: it is very thin, almost scale thickness! The moulding is excellent: there are almost no air bubbles, only some flash, but it's easily removed. 

The accuracy of the kit is fine. The detailing is pretty basic, though: you get no hand spike, no seats, no dial sight, and only one hand wheel (the elevating wheel, I think). But all these are pretty easy to supply yourself, so I don't think is a big drawback. of course, if you want to have the gun in its Great War guise, the metal type wheels have to be substituted for spoked tree ones . (The metal ones supplied in the kit was only seen on guns used in WW2.)  

Well, Cromwell Models do make first rate kits, and this is no exception. I am surprised by how they manage to do such a good kit, with soo few parts! And the detailing is in first rate. There are three 1/76 Cannone da 75/27 mod.06 to be found on the market. Matadors kit is the weakest, Ostmodels is really good, but Cromwell Models kit is the best. Highly recommended!