"Italian Coastal Artillery portee" Topic

I was reading Frank Chadwick's fascinating "bengazi Handicap", when I came across this fascinating unit, the 30th Coast defense/Anti-aircrat Artillery regiment.
apparently, they had 3 batteries of 3 guns each, of 102L35 naval guns mounted in the back of Fiat 634N heavy trucks.
Now, while I do NOT want to face these things (Mark has Italians and kicks my Desert Rat ass on a regular basis), I would love to model these.
Who makes anything close to this in 15mm?
How about a wild guess as to points cost, and Flames of War stats, too?

Well, here's the truck:

link

Second photo down here is the gun on the truck:

link

As the caption indicates, the gun was in use as an AA weapon and in coastal artillery emplacements. You can even find them as coastal artillery weapons in the CD:TOB OOB for Leros, here:

link

Now compare that combination to the Lancias with 90mm AT guns, further down the page.

Battlefront makes the Lancias. I think you could make a passable model of the Autocannone da 102/35 by using the Lancia, cutting the gun tobe down to 35 calibers (35.7 mm, so you don't have to scratch your head), and putting sand channels and as much other cultch as you can onto it to disguise the fact that it's not just the Lancia. Or just use Lancias as proxys…

Points cost and stats: I would take the lazy man's easy way out, and just count them as the Lancia (Autocannone da 90/53). Sure, you can get all worked up about a larger round versus (maybe) higher velocity; but why? That way, the points and stats are Capital "O" O-fficial. You're just using them to proxy something else that's probably pretty close.

Allen

Great photos, Allen. I know you love your trucks. The Fiat ("Fix it again, Tony") is certainly sexier than the homely Dovunque.

I love the picture of the British officer playing with the leveling jacks on the gun that split.

I am a lazy man, and like your reasoning.

And here's a large-scale model to give some ideas, if you feel like some more accurate modelling:

link

Somebody's even thinking along those lines for an EW FoW list; see page 21:

PDF link

Allen

"I love the picture of the British officer playing with the leveling jacks on the gun that split."

"Now stop playing with that, Duncan: you'll break it!"

FYI, Armstrong also does the Autocannone in 6mm:

picture

…which is very cool.

Allen

That's rated higher in the AT than the Lancia.
I guess if you are designed to shoo destroyers and light cruiers away, you have to expect that.
However, it IS "unreliable and overloaded". It should also "spin in circles if not aligned along the center of mass". Use Blue Max "recovery from a spin" rules. 8^)

Maybe this will be one of those mysterious unaccounted-for Early War listings. Early War Monsters?
Your links show a heck of a lot of portees.

QRF makes the early war gun system in their SCW series.