I've been very impressed with the images being posted by the men at 20mmZone. Providentially their release of Italian Tanks coincided with my possession of some additional disposable income. So, I took the plunge and ordered 20 M13-40s. This gives me enough to field two complete battalions for Command Decision, which happens to be the Italian Armor strength at Bir el Gubi
Customer Service was excellent with 20mmZone giving me a nice discount for buying in bulk. Additionally, they tossed in some stowage pieces (bundle, bags, and cans), a few sangars and some really nice Italian tank commanders. The package arrived in Iowa within 10 days and was smaller than I expected. Here's a photo of the contents laid out. There was no breakage of any kind.
Assembly was as quick as promised. There was only one mold line visible on one turret, but that was easily disguised with a couple of jerry cans. I used gel super glue which worked fine once I figured out where the contact points would be on the treads. You do have to be careful with attaching the treads as there are no grooves or marks to position them front and back. Here they are assembled and ready for paint.
You will note that I didn't use any of the commanders. This is because all of the turrets came with closed hatches and I really didn't relish the idea of scraping the hatch off and modeling an open hatch. I'm thinking those commanders are going to end up in some Tankettes.
On to paint. I sprayed them overall with Tamiya spray acrylic Dark Yellow. I theme touched up with the same bait from a bottle. I needed to work over the torrents especially, as the paint did not cover as well on the metal as it did on the resin. I then painted the tracks and road wheel tires Liquitex Mars Black, hand painted the Company Markings on the turret and used various colors for the stowage. As is my usual practice on vehicles, I then applied a thin Mars Black wash followed by a vigorous dry brushing with Liquitex Unbleached Titanium. Here's the final result:
Overall, these are excellent models which take paint very well. I also bought a couple of British A13's and they were equally good. I'll be ordering more product in the future.