Trumpeter 1/35 Italian C1 Ariete MBT By Kent Kirkpatrick

C1 Ariete MBT

Italy was never known for building a formitable main battle tank. Postwar Italy depended on imports or license-built designs from other countries. This changed in February of 1997 when the first Ariete 1 tanks began to appear. This "all Italian" second generation MBT was designed and manufactured by the Iveco Fiat and OTO Melara consortium. This new main battle tank will replace the older Leopard 1A2 as the standard armored fighting vehicle of the Italian Army. Main armament includes 120-mm smoothbore gun with secondary armament comprised of two MG 42/59 - 7.62 mm. One coaxial to main gun and the other on the turret roof for local and air defense. The Ariete MBT is powered by the new turbocharged Fiat V-12 MTCA diesel developing 1,275 horse power.

The Kit

The colorful box art gives you an idea of how to paint and decal your C1 Ariete. Inside the corrugated box you will see the kit is well-packaged with a separate compartment containing the upper and lower hull pieces. Multiple sealed bags containing four part sprues molded in a somewhat soft olive drab styrene. Visual inspection shows that there are no sink marks or flash. The injector pin marks are on the inside surface of major parts otherwise they are found on the sprue racks. Part detail is very crisp and to scale. Another small sealed bag contains the decals, clear acetate sheet and string for tow cables. The 12-page instruction booklet (Chinese/English) is very well illustrated. To assist in assembly there is a symbol legend for gluing, painting, drilling, etc. Included is a numbered parts location diagram.

Assemby begins with the lower hull with steps 1 through 8. Lower hull assembly starts out by attaching shock asorbers and suspension arms. This looks like the most boring part of assembling the Ariete MBT as there are 16 suspension arms to assemble and attach to the lower hull. Step 5 is typical for tank models involving the assembly of the drive sprockets, road wheels and idlers. Pretty much straight-foward for this step. The sprockets and road wheels look very familiar to the ones on the Leopard MBTs. The one-piece grimy black vinyl tracks are made whole by heating the head on a nail to melt the pins in step 6. When the tracks are complete then you will proceed to attach all wheels to the lower hull suspension arms in steps 7 through 9. Again, this stretch is a no-brainer for the builder. In steps 10 through 13 you begin the upper hull assembly. The nicely detailed upper hull has a strange resemblance to the Leopard 1 series. This kit has a separate engine deck cover which suggests to the after-market companies to come up with an engine detail kit. Otherwise, just glue it to the upper hull and call it a day. I would suggest drilling out the molded headlights and replacing them with MV lenses for added realism. Also, use picture wire instead of the cotton string, included in the kit, the quality appears too fuzzy to bother with in the first place. Perhaps, one could floss their teeth with it instead. Steps 15 through 18 complete the turret assembly. The turret has the most detail parts and to me its the best detailed sub-assembly of the kit. Step 15 assists you in the assembly of the two-piece 120mm main gun. Maybe an after-market gun barrel would save you time but not money. Give the kit barrel some needed attention before purchasing another. Don't forget to watch those seems after gluing together. In step 16, you will use the sheet of transparent acetate. There is a template printed on the acetate so you can precisely cut out the vision blocks for the commander and gunner hatches. The instructions don't mention this but I would tint them a clear medium blue color as they tell you so for the driver hatch. Mating of the turret and hull is completed in step 19. At this point you should be ready for paint, decals and weathering. The multicolored decals are thin and well-printed. Marking represent one C1 Ariete but there is no unit description. The painting and marking guide does not reference a primary color for this vehicle. My guess is a standard NATO olive drab as the guide does not indicate any kind of camo-scheme for it.

Conclusion

The overall quality of this kit is excellent and highly recommended. This has been a trademark for Trumpeter. From a visual inspection, I give this kit two thumbs up from scale-affect molding. I would expect a modeler would find this unique modern armored fighting vehicle enjoyable to build. I am planning to do a build-review of this kit in the near future so stay tuned. I would like to thank Stevens International for the review kit.