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Il Principe Nero's
1/72 | |
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On the Real Thing |
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The gun emerged as a big, rather akward-looking, heavy thing that had to be broken down into two loads (barrel and carriage) to be transported. The design of the gun was pretty standard, with a hydraulic recoil mechanism. The pure artilleristic performace was no too bad, though. After the first 28 copies were produced, the elevation mechanism was modified, which enabled to increase elevation from +30° to to +45°, which, with a new type of shell with more streamlined outline, gave the gun a maximum range of some 21km. This slightly modified gun was given the designation M.15/16. The rate of fire was low: one shell per minute. It weighed 11.9tons emplaced, 16.4 tons when in movement mode.
Although unwieldy it was a potent gun, and after WW1 it was used by the armies of Austria (only two guns, though), Czechoslovakia and Italy. The German Army also came to use this gun. In 1939 the guns in Czech service had been put in reserve, but were deemed serviceable enough to be taken over by the Germans, who used them in the Atlantic Wall defences. | |
| On the kit | |
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The kit comes packed in a small card-board box typical of Il Principe Nero. It has a nice set of instruction, giving both historical notes, an exploded view of the construction plus some photos of a kit being built. Very good! (Instructions are not something to be counted on in the world of resin kits.) The kit consists of some 30+ parts, moulded in a yellow, medium-soft resin. There is some moulding flash, but they are easily cleaned off. Also, the moulding stubs are small and easily removed. The moulding is very good, with only a couple of small air bubbles. The detail work is very, very impressive. For instance, the rivets on the trail and the wheels are almost scale size! Gabriele Zenoni is one of the most talented Master Builders in Europe today, and he really shows this in this superb kit. The accuracy of the kit is also very high. (Just look at the fact that the hand-wheels comes in three different sizes!) At the same time, this is not a complex kit, and you will probably get an excellent model by just building it straight from the box. I find it hard to fault it. People who want to improve their kits, could consider adding a splinter shield to the gun, an operation that shouldn't be too hard. Also the ramming rods used to load the gun could be added. But that is just if you want to, because the kit is spot on as it stands. The combination of a good plan, and location stubs for critical parts, make the kit easy to build. As I have mentioned before: Artillery models are best built like Biplane models, i.e. in segments. Especially small and frail parts like the hand wheels must be added last, after all painting and weathering has been done. The kits of Il
Principe Nero can be
bought from
Italian Kits
in Italy or
Tracks & Troops
in the Czech Republic. |
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Verdict |
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