Some progress for the evening

I have flocked the remaining painted items that I had. That is the start of my third platoon of Italian infantry in 15mm. Plus a 65mm Mountain gun for a support weapon. The pictures are bad as the lighting in my cubicle is not so great.

This shows half of a platoon: one Rifle Section of 13 men and an NCO, a light machine gun section of two gunners, two loaders and four riflemen. Also a pistol wielding officer.

The flash was not kind in this picture but is shows the light machine gun teams. The Breda was a goofy weapon in that it was tray fed with an odd built in oiler that did not handle extreme cold or dust very well. This meant that the two theaters that it was deployed in (Russia and North Africa) proved it to be unreliable. The tray feeding mechanism meant that it could only fire in bursts and not in a sustained fashion. Definitely one of those "What were they thinking moments."

Here is a closeup of the 65mm mountain gun. What I have read shows that most of the Italian artillery was actually quite good if dated. The crews served their weapons well especially in the retreat back through the Ukraine in winter of 1942/3.

Next up is some painting of two more LMG teams and one last rifle team and the HQ squad.