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KMR 1/35 Italian Carro Armato L3/35 Tankette

By Ray Mehlberger

History:

The Ansaldo Company of Genoa began developing tanks for the Italian army in the early 1930s. The first model to enter service was approved in 1933 as the Carro Veloce 33 or CV/33. This owed a good deal to the British Carden-Lloyd designs and was a lightweight, turretless model armed with a single machine-gun and carrying a two-man crew. It was slightly improved in 1935 by the fitting of two machine-guns and was designated L3/35 (subject of this model). The chassis was also used for the construction of flame-throwing (subject of another version in the KMR kit range), and bridge-laying tanks, though few of these were ever made.

Numbers of the CV/33 were sold to Australia, Brazil, Hungary, Bulgaria, and San Salvadore.

CV/33s and 35s were used in Ethiopia and in the Spanish Civil War. In the Ethiopian campaign they had no opposition and proved useful, but in Spain they were no match for the Soviet tanks used by the Republican forces. Their failures in action were responsible for a number of false conclusions about the value of armor in battle.

Technical Data:

Weight: 3.85 tons 
Armament: two machine-guns 
Speed: 25 Mph.
Engine: 40 Bhp. petrol 
Range: 70 miles 
Armor: 12 mm 
Crew: 2

Years ago, I answered a few ads in the back of Fine Scale Modeler magazine. These were from fellows in other countries who were looking for pen-pals to trade with. One of the modelers I corresponded with lived in Spain. He offered to trade some Spanish resin armor kits from a firm in Spain named KMR.

There were several kits that, at that time, were not available from any other company – especially not as an injection molded plastic kit. The two that intrigued me and that I subsequently traded this Spaniard for were the French Renault FT-17 and the Ansaldo L3/35 Italian tankette.

When I got these kits I could not help but notice that the molding on them was not the greatest. Bumps and lumps appeared on the resin parts, as well as many surface bubbles. In some cases the rivet pattern had been pulled off the parts when they were taken out of the molds. A lot of cleanup was needed...especially on the L3/35. The main hull piece had been poured from the rear and this surface was really full of surface bubbles and other blemishes that took putty and sanding to fill....removing some of the detail around these too. The tracks were a bit of nightmare too. For one thing they did NOT go the distance all the way around the running gear and in one place I have a gap.

I built the L3/35 straight out of the box. It was put together with the necessary CA superglue of course. I painted it in a deep sand base color and then went over that with red/brown wave pattern camouflage. Markings, on the side, consist of a red rectangle with two white vertical bars. This indicates that it is a tank of the first company, second platoon. The Roman numeral "II", above this rectangle, indicates that this is the 2nd tank in that platoon. The decals in the kit also give the RE license plates.

The kit was weathered with a dark wash and highlighted on the treads with Rub & Buff silver paste (sold in tubes at art stores) to show wear and tear on them.

The kit did not turn out too terribly bad....but it is far from a contest winner. I mounted it on a board that I glued some sand to. I wanted to show it as being a desert-like atmosphere, where most of these served.

Conclusion

I cannot say, for sure, whether KMR even exists anymore. I haven't ever seen their kits advertised anyplace. They were a NEW brand to me years ago. I wish I could say something more positive about their quality...but they were rather crude. It was just a case of them being THE ONLY SHOW IN TOWN for some of their subjects - the firm of RPM has since released several different kits of the FT-17 in injection molded styrene, however there has been NO injection molded L3/35 done in plastic - and with my armor addiction I just had to have them.