The M47 Tank in the Italian Army

 As already pointed out in the M47 introductory article "... The M47 was widely used by the NATO countries forming the first modern tank forces...". One of these countries was Italy, where over a thousand M47s served in the Cavalry and Armoured Troops (Carristi) units, from the mid 50s through the mid 80s.

It was decided that the old tanks from the M4 "Sherman" family were to be phased out, along with the M24 "Chaffee" and the M26 "Pershing". The introduction was quite controversial in most of the Cavalry units, due to the fact that almost all of them had pathfinding and reconnaissance functions: In such an environment a tank like the M24 was suited perfectly the assigned tasks. The crews initially criticized the M47 due to its size, lack of maneuverability and noise, features that were conflicting with the missions of the units.

With the restructuring of the Italian Army in 1975, only 4 out of the 14 Cavalry Squadron Groups (they were just downsized from Regiments) continued to be involved in the pathfinder/recon task,  while the other units took over the same operational tasks as other armored (3 Squadron Groups), tanks (4 Squadron Groups) or mechanized (3 Squadron Groups) units.

During its service with the Italian Army, there were no significant modifications to the original M47 as procured from the United States. There was an attempt to install a Vickers L7A3 (the same as the M60 and Leopard 1A1) gun, but this was never adopted.

The withdrawal from service of the M47 from the Italian Army started in the early 70’s with the introduction of the Leopard 1A1 (bought from Kraus Maffei) and  Leopard 1A2 (built in Italy under license) and was completed in mid 80’s.

Several of the former Italian Army's M47’s were then sold abroad (mainly to Somalia), a few were kept by the units in which they served for almost three decades, and all the others were recycled (as we use to say in Italy they were sent to make "sauce pans and their related lids").

The model I decided to reproduce was an M47 of the 1st Pathfinders Squadron of the "Cavalleggeri di Lodi (15°)" from the Italian Cavalry in the early 80’s.

 The kit

 The base kit is the old but surprisingly good Italeri M47 "Patton" now out of production (but I had the news before the production was stopped and I had time to buy a bunch of them). The kit is one of those you can build straight out of the box if you like.  I usually prefer scratch-building the extra details I need instead of buying PE sets and other aftermarket items. This time a series of coincidences made me move from the usual path. At a car boot sale  I bought for a few bucks a second hand  DML M26 "Pershing" which included two sets of extra tracks (one from AFV and the other possibly from Friulmodel), a set of PE parts for the Browning .50, and some more extra goodies. A few days later, a friend of mine (the owner of "Italian Kits"  - www.italiankits.com) gave me for free a pre-production turret from his forthcoming aftermarket M47 improvement set.

So with all the unexpected quantity of goodies I collected, I recognized it was just the right time to start building a model.

 The construction

 Hull and Suspension
The construction of the hull and the suspension was really straight forward and carried out without any problem. All of the parts fit together easily and very well and the instructions are clear enough to be 100% hassle free. The only modifications I made were to replace the handles of the external stowage boxes with copper wire, to add the headlights cabling done with thinner copper wire, to close the hole of the track tension wheel arm adding also the relevant rivets, and other minor modifications.

The only part a bit tricky was to put together the AFV tracks, because at the first attempts to separate the parts from the sprue I destroyed a few links. Once I used the right tool (a cutter for electronic parts) everything went smooth and relatively quick, anyway you have to pay attention because the plastic pins of the links are very thin and it's quite easy to break them. This was the first time I used plastic aftermarket tracks and I put them together on the fly, but the next time I'll paint them on the sprue as the painting process will be much easier and faster leaving only the weathering for a later stage.

Turret
The resin turret was a different story altogether. The lack of detail was almost complete so there was a lot to do from copper wire. I built the loader's hatch springs, the loader's hatch handle, the loader's periscope guard, the commander's hatch handle, the wire which keeps in place the fabric guard around the gun mantlet; all with copper wire, foil and tubing. The 0.50 supports and the main gun, from copper tubing; with copper foil the tank commander's and the gunner's sighting device guards; from a guitar chord and a section of syringe's needle the antenna; from styrene all of the rivets.

The 0.50 Browning
This was the most challenging part of the whole model. After studying all the available reference material I built it using the following parts: the main body from Tamiya; the barrel from a syringe needle and copper tubing; the handles from copper tubing; the front sight and other details from copper wire and foil; all the rest from a specific set from Eduard.

All the scratch building can look very complicated, but with a bit of reference material, the right tools and some patience every difficulty can be overcome. The copper and the brass parts, where possible, were soldered; all the rest were glued using a tiny drop of Future floor polish. The advantage of using it, even if it can seem a bit weird, is that it gives you plenty of time to properly position the parts and once dried it's invisible and the overall adhesion is good.

Painting 

Hull and Turret
I use primer on injected styrene models, just to be sure that everything is ok and to get a homogeneous blending for all of the different materials used during construction. I primed with a multi-purpose acrylic primer I buy at art craft stores; it's inexpensive, covers very well without hiding the details and, most important thing to me, I can airbrush it. Then I applied the pre-shades with Tamiya flat black and then thin layers of Tamiya olive drab (70% windshield cleaner and 30% paint) until I got the right coverage. Then I airbrushed a coat of Future floor polish to prepare for decaling and the wash. Once dry I applied the decals (all of them are printed by myself) and on these another coat of Future to seal them.

Afterwards, selected areas of the model were given a wash (Burnt Sienna diluted at 95% in Zippo fuel lighter) to add depth where needed (I typically do this around the rivets, and all of the recesses and panel lines). After this I applied a coat of Testors dullcote and a light drybrush to highlight raised details using Windsor & Newton artist's oil Naples yellow.

Road wheels
These were painted with a coat of enamel Testors rubber and then, with a circle template used as mask, I sprayed Tamiya olive drab on the inner part. This was then treated exactly in the same way as described above. The rubber part was then drybrushed with a light gray, this time enamel. The sprockets were then highlighted wit a 3B pencil.

Tracks
The tracks were first sprayed with a coat of enamel Testors rust and then with enamel Testors rubber on the rubber bits. All the metal parts were then highlighted using a 3B pencil.

Browning 0.50
It was initially airbrushed with acrylic flat black, then drybrushed with gun metal and silver and finished as usual with a 3B pencil. The handles were painted with Tamiya flat brown and washed like the tank body.

Finish
Once finished with the sub assemblies painting (hull & suspensions, turret, tracks, machine gun and road wheels & sprockets) all of them were put together for the final weathering.

Before doing it I applied the headlight lenses that I made cutting out from the metal bit of a 3 1/2 floppy disk with a punch & die set a few discs. For the infrared lights the discs were painted in olive drab and then finished with a drop of Tamiya clear red; for the standard headlights the discs were painted in silver and finished with a drop of Tamiya clear gloss. This method allows obtaining very realistic effects either in terms of color and shape and can be mastered with very little practice.

The final weathering consisted of the application of pigments (that come in an infinite variety of colors and shades, are inexpensive and can be found at any art crafts store) with a big soft make-up brush.

Conclusions
The Italieri kit, despite of its age is, in my view, still excellent. Any way you decide to build it, out of the box, with minor scratch built modifications, or with specific aftermarket enhancement sets, it will give great satisfaction to the modeler. It goes together well and the instructions are straight forward, clear and accurate, it's really a pity that Italieri decided to stop its production but I still hope to see it again in the hobby shop shelves in a near future.

Fabio d'Inzeo
www.cavalleriaitaliana.it