Originally posted 22nd April 2011

I've been looking for some Lancia armoured trucks for some time and have finally decided to plump for the QRF WW1 models that are available. 

This model fairly accurately reflects an early Lancia armoured truck, but I really wanted the later 1ZM version which featured a wire cutter stretched from bonnet to top of cab and dispensed (for weight's sake) with the armoured rear wheel covering. Twelve of these were sent to Libya in the early 1930's, so could conceivably still have been going in 1940/41.

As for the paint scheme...well, it's not very accurate. Most Italian equipment was still painted dark green in 1940/41 rather than the desert yellow shown below. Amusingly, the white wall front tyre and nifty turret decoration are probably correct: the black and white photo I have seen from Benghazi shows a dark (presumably) green truck with white wall tyres and a turret that is definitely made up of two colours in the pattern shown below separated by a white line. It's not too much of a stretch to think that they might have been green and red to make the Italian flag!