The Enrico Toti (S506) was the lead boat in its namesake class of Italian submarines. The keel was laid in 1965, she was launched in 1967, commissioned in 1968, and was decommissioned in 1992. In 2005 the boat was moved by land to Milan, where she resides today in the Museum of Science and Technology “Leonardo da Vinci”. Called “pocket submarines” due to their diminutive size, the boats of this class were intended only to operate in the Mediterranean Sea, mostly to patrol the Channel of Sicily and participate in NATO exercises. The boat is 151.6 feet long, has a 15.4 feet beam, and has a draught of 18.7 feet. The two Fiat diesels provided power to the diesel-electric drive that would propel the boat at 14 knots surfaced, or 15 knots submerged. The crew consisted of 4 officers and 22 sailors, and she was armed with four 21-inch torpedo tubes.

Bottom Line Up Front: This most recent addition to the Osprey Men-at-Arms Series does its best to make sense of a confusing subject, to the Japanese civil wars of the 1860s and 1870s period. It is well illustrated and provides rudimentary information that is fairly easy to understand.

Brief History

Manufactured by the Stoewer Company, as well as BMW and Hanomag since 1936, the light uniform all-road car (leichten gelande Einhets Personen-Kraftwagen) possessed all-wheel drive, independent suspension, and a simplified open body. This particular body, the Kfz.2, was a three-seat communication car with a Torn. Fu.b1 radio set.

The Kit

The kit consists of 5 styrene sprues, one clear sprue, and a small sheet of decals that represent the four featured schemes in the kit. Construction begins with the chassis, and over the course of the first thirteen assembly steps, you’ve handled 45 parts. Everything goes together pretty smoothly however.

The next thirteen steps have you assembling the engine and inserting it onto the chassis. It builds into quite a nice little kit all itself. Following that, we move onto the floor of the car, adding the fuel tank, bracket, rear reflector, and fuel tank nozzle. This is then added to the chassis.