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This article deals with the history and development of tanks employed by military forces in Italy from their first use in World War I, the interwar period, during World War II, the Cold War and modern era. Italy's history of tanks carries through to the current Ariete main battle tank of the Italian Army. ==Overview== Italy first imported the French Renault FT and produced a slightly improved version, the Fiat 3000, before beginning its own designs. While the Fiat 3000 was being developed, France sent 100 of these FT tanks to Italy in 1918 so that Italian troops could get acquainted with tracked combat vehicles. By 1918, FIAT and Ansaldo, were the only industrial complex large enough to deal with tank production. The first model produced for the Royal Army (Regio Esercito), was the FIAT 3000 (by 1935 renamed L5/21). They were ready by 1922, and served well to forge Italian interwar armoured tactics and was in use until 1943. Another model developed in 1930, was the gun-armed (Vickers-Termi 37mm) serie II or FIAT 3000B. Both formed the bulk of the Italian army corp until new models arrived in 1935. Soon after, the official designations incorporated "Carro Armato or "CA" meaning "armored carriage". Italy bought a number of Carden Loyd Mark VIs, built a few licence copies designated CV-29, and then developed this design further. Italy produced a large number of CV-33 and CV-35 tankettes based on this Vickers-Carden-Lloyd concept. A native Italian design was the L6/40, a very small light tank with a 20 mm Breda cannon and rivetted construction. A medium tank, based on the Vickers Six-Tonner, was the M-11-M13 series which had a very good 47 mm gun, but very thin armor. The Carro Armato (armored vehicle) was the Italian Army's designation for tanks from 1938 onwards. This would be followed by a letter and a series of numbers. The letter would be either L, M or P meaning light, medium, and heavy tank respectively. The official Italian military tank classification differed from contemporary classifications in other countries. The numbers would follow the pattern of X/Y where X would be the weight in tonnes and Y the year of adoption (i.e. the L6/40 weighs 6 tonnes and was adopted in the year 1940). The following are some Carro Armatos that entered service:〔''Note:'' The L3/33 and the L3/35 tankettes were designated "Fast Tank" (Carro Veloce) and were initially known as the CV-33 and the CV-35.〕 *Carro Armato L5/21: Fiat L5/21 light tank *Carro Armato L5/30: Fiat L5/30 light tank *Carro Armato L6/40: Fiat L6/40 light tank *Carro Armato M11/39: Fiat M11/39 medium tank *Carro Armato M13/40: Fiat M13/40 medium tank *Carro Armato M14/41: Fiat M14/41 medium tank *Carro Armato M15/42: Fiat M15/42 medium tank *Carro Armato P40: Fiat P26/40 heavy tank 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Tanks in the Italian Army」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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