General info
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The story of the Italian M47 starts during the 5th October of 1952, Italy during the early cold war began to modernize its tanks fleet by begining to replace the aging M26 Pershing tanks they had in service. The M47 would be delivered from America to Italy in the form of the MAP (Military Assistance Program), which would proceed to equip Italy with new M47 tanks up until the 29th of December of that year, when deliveries would finally be complete. Italy would end up using over 1,000 units of the M47 in various different regiments. They would go on to serve in the Italian army for many years, until they were eventually put out of service in favour of the American M60. Before they were put out of service however, Italy in 1965 would be interested in seeing if it would be possibile to modify and upgrade its M47 fleet to make it last longer and potentially save up money for other projects they wanted to work on. Thus, Italy would orginise a sort of competition between Italian firms, which would all design/modify the M47 tank which would be compared with each other. The plan would be that the best out of the ones presented would be chosen by the army and adopted in service. Of the firms which took part in this competition would include OTO Melara, which would present an M47 with a new 105mm cannon and improvements to the hull, FIAT which presented an M47 which used some form of diesel continental engine, ISI which would re-use the same engine installed on the Leopard and outfit it to the M47 and also the Servizio Tecnico Di Motorizzazione which aimed to improve the M47 with some form of unknown diesel engine. Out of these companies, Astra also took part and would be the one which stood out (besides OTO Melara) in terms of the overall upgrade to the M47. The Astra upgrade mainly focused on improving the turret and gun elevation mechanisms whilst also outfitting the tank with an General Motors 12V-71T engine. Other improvements on the M47 Astra included a new transmission, new muzzle break, a modified cross-drive, a new eletrical generator and a new fire control system. It would retain the standard armament of any regular M47, it being the 90mm M36 cannon which was able to fire rounds such as APCR, HE and HVAP. It also had access to up to 2 12.7mm machine guns. Its also good to note that in the mid-1950’s the machine-gun and gunner in the front of the hull of the Italian M47 tanks would be abandoned, so all these M47 prototypes had 4 crew members and the “hole” which used to house the machine gun. Armor wise, everything was kept the same from the standard M47 tank, meaning it was able to survive enemy fire from rounds that were in service during the era. Ultimately all M47 proposals would be presented but would not generate enough interest to be put in in full time service. The Astra company would however keep working on military vehicles, mainly the logisitical kind such as transport trucks. Its unknown what happened to the Astra prototype but it likely was scrapped or was transformed back into a regular M47 after the trials were over.
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