Ostmodels 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 Ostmodels. Typical of Ostmodels it also lacks all plans. The kit itself consists of only 8 parts, all moulded in a light-grey resin. 

The details are sharp and well defined. (In my specimen one of the parts of the shield had been broken off, but it was easily mended.) The moulding is not first rate: the amount of air bubbles are small (otherwise a usual problem with Ostmodels kits) but there is quite a lot of flash. Especially the brakes really need a lot of job to be freed from the flash. It is no big problem, more of a irritant.

The accuracy of the kit is very good. of course, the wheels have to be substituted for spoked tree wheels if you want to have a Great War gun. (The metal ones supplied in the kit was only seen on guns used in WW2.) You must of course supply some small details, like the dial sight, elevating and traversing wheels.

The kit is very attractive, as it actually can also be used as a good base for converting it into some other types of Field Guns used during the period. (I for one will use this gun in order to build the Austro-Hungarian 7cm M.8.)
 

Ostmodels is a good manufacturer, too often overlooked, I think, perhaps because their mouldings not always are as good as the first-rate resin companies. But the detailing is in general first rate. This is a surprisingly good kit, accurate both in shape and outline. It can also be used as base for a number of conversions. Recommended!