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The M.A.S. stood for Motobarca Armata SVAN. This little torpedo boat can trace its origins back to 1915 with a lineage of evolving attack craft. 1935 signalled the birth of this variant, the “500” series.
Powered by two 1,000hp engines, the “500” series had a new twin-stepped planning hull & boasted a speed of over 45 knots.
It was a compact craft with two torpedo tubes & two 13.2mm machine guns making up the standard armament.
Various sub-versions of the “500” series appeared, including the 4th sub-series depicted by Italeri in this 1:35th scale plastic kit (Italeri, Ref: 5608). The differentiating features are a 20mm Breda canon, reinforced prow & smaller detail touches.
In effect, this boat was capable of record-breaking speeds but the craft only had a handful of successes, notably attacking shipping destined for the besieged island of Malta.
Some were deployed to the Black Sea & M.A.S. 568, depicted on the box art, is one of these vessels.
So what about the kit? Well, like many of the successful range of torpedo boats released by Italeri – the standard is high. The box is smaller than its peers & that’s because this is a smaller vessel. It will still build into an impressive kit though, at over 55cm in length.
There’re four main sprues moulded in a soft light grey plastic typical of Italeri’s naval kits. In addition, supplied loose are the hull & deck parts, plus an etch brass fret, rope, screws, pre-cut glazing for the wheelhouse & markings for two Black Sea M.A.S. craft – 568 & 563.
The photo-based instructions are well-produced & clear showing the 38 phases of construction in detail.
Parts are very well produced & this promises to be a long build, but the components look like they’ll reward the modeller. The wheelhouse looks especially well made & all the deck details look to scale & finely produced. The hull too looks expertly produced & pretty chunky.
The two “F” sprues are a good representation of the quality of this kit. They hold the torpedoes. It remains to be seen how good they will look with the join running longitudinally along the fish, however, the surface detail looks good. Likewise, the smaller parts on these sprues are typical Italeri – some sinks marks & the occasional bit of clean-up needed, but all-in-all very good. Smaller components are finely moulded.
So if you are tempted to take a dive into the Italeri torpedo boats, we reckon the M.A.S. is a great first excursion.
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