David Fletcher, former historian at Bovington Tank Museum, looks at the role played by Italian tanks during World War Two
‘In theory an M13/40 weighed 13 tons while an M14/41 weighed 14 tons’
During World War Two, Italian tanks were fought just as bravely as those from Germany or Britain, but being relatively thinly armoured and built from riveted construction, they tended to be more vulnerable and easily knocked out.
Automotively they were very good, but since Italy did not have the sort of heavy industries needed to make tanks they seem to have relied on motor manufacturers who normally built cars or trucks, so they were probably not as good as they might have been.
For the purposes of this article we’re focusing on the M14/41, since there is one at Bovington, but will also consider others such as the M11/39 which was still in service at the outbreak of war, although already, by then, on the verge of being obsolete.
The M11/39 was a 1937 design, it was preceded by the eight-ton light tank of 1935 which also had a 37mm gun mounted in the front of the hull on the right, with a turret above and behind which mounted a pair of 8mm Beda machine guns.
Again like the M11/39 it was powered by a water-cooled V8 …
