Matadors 1/76 Cannone da 75/27 mod.06
by Stephen Brezinski & Peter Kempf

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 box included a Fiat OCI 708 caterpillar tractor and two-wheeled trailer of the 1930's, and the gun. As the tractor and trailer are of post WW1 use I will not discus them further here. The Italian 75/27 mod. 06 is based on the German Krupp 75-mm field gun sold worldwide before WW1 so this model could be modified to represent Krupp guns in Swedish, Belgian, Japanese, Norwegian, Dutch or Finnish service. This Italian-produced gun was used throughout WW1 and into WW2 as well.

The model kit of the gun consists of 12 white metal parts. The box trail and the wood-spoked metal-tired wheels are the nicest parts. The gun barrel and recuperator are well done though can use detailing such as elevation and traverse handwheels. As to be expected with metal kits, he gun shield is very thick and for a display model should be replaced with a scratchbuilt thinner brass or plastic card shield. Overall this is a great wargaming piece and with some work can be made into decent display model. I prefer the resin Ostmodels kit of this gun; mostly because I find the resin easier to work with.

Typical of many cottage industry producers, I find the instructions to be mediocre at best. I would prefer several good exploded-view drawings showing placement of all the parts. To purchase Matador Models go to their site.
 

Contents of the kit:

The kit comes together with a WW2-vintage fully-tracked tractor, the FIAT OCI 708. This review only deals with the gun. The kit of the 75mm gun consists of some 13 parts, all moulded in white metal. 

White metal is often a very good material for small and delicate parts, and this kit comes with a pair of fine traversing/elevating wheels, and the handles on the trail of the gun are well moulded. 

The accuracy of the kit is good. The wheels, and especially the wheel hubs are spot on. The shield, however, is a bit of a let-down, being overly thick and with pretty crude detailing. If you compare it with the Ostmodels offering, the Ostmodels offering wins. One of the best things with this kit, however, are the wheels. If you want to build a WW1-gun: here you have it: no scrounging around for these, like in the Ostmodels kit. 

Matador is one of my favourite companies when it comes to WW1. They are really dedicated to the era, and they have made several good artillery kits from this period. This one is quite OK, although not as good as some of their other offerings. Perhaps I would have been more enthusiastic if I hadn't seen Ostmodels kit of the same gun. Still, a good replica can be built out of it!