- Yes
- No
Hi everyone, this time I want to suggest the Autocannone 76/30 su Lancia Ro, the Regia Marina response to the 75/27 su Ceirano 50.
Before starting I would like to tank again @qwert96, that gave me some of his time and helped me find all the ammunition of the 76/30, even the oldest ones with black powder as explosive mass.
Also, because of the rarity of this machines (only 14 units were produced) and the fact that none of them were ever captured (unlike its big brother, the 102/35 su Fiat 634) we only have few images of this machine and, some of them, are shots of the old Fiat 18 BLR incorrectly labeled as Lancia Ro.
Still, they were enough to rebuild it.
BRIEF HISTORY:
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The history of this machine started in 1917, when, for the first time, the Italian army installed the Regia Marina 76/30 on the Fiat 18 BLR chassis for anti-air purposes.
Those machines were divided in two “Batterie Autocarreggiate” (truck-mounted batteries) named R.M. I and II and were dislocated in various bases in Italy during that year, from La Spezia to the lake of Garda, where they provided air support for the MAS flotilla base stationed there.
During WWII 14 of those 76/30 were initially refitted on the more modern Lancia Ro chassis and divided between the 13th,14th and 16th batteries of the MILMART and sent to operate in the North African theatre. ( five guns for both the 13th and 14th and four for the 16th)
Later on, two machines of the 14th battery were assigned to the 60th Sabartha Infantry division while the 16th battery was added in the 16th Pistoia Infantry Division.
Then, the machines of the 14th battery were also moved in the 60th Sabartha Infantry division to supplement lost units and participated in the defense of Marsa Matruh and Tobruk’s bases.
Both of those batteries terminated their activity In Tunisia with the surrender of the Italian 1st Army.
Little bonus:
Seven of the fourteen machines initially converted to the Lancia Ro truck were further upgraded to the more powerful Fiat 634 and assigned to the “Centauro” division.
ENGINE AND CHASSIS:
Not to be confused with its more modern version, the Lancia 3Ro, the original Lancia Ro also proved itself to be an exceptionally reliable vehicle, able to maintain a constant speed of 18-20Km/h on all terrains, pass even steep inclines and reach 32Km/h on roads even at full load capacity, never forcing its although weak 64Hp engine thanks to the great numbers of gears at its disposal ( 8 forward, 2 backwards).
The chassis was modified to install the 76/30 in the exact same configuration that it had on the previous Fiat 18 BLR, like you can see here (the first one is the old version):
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This meant the installation of the 76/30 on the rear axis, to better counter the recoil of the gun, the addition of foldable sides to provide 360° of rotation of the gun and the installation of small legs to fix the machine to the ground to stabilize it while firing on the sides.
The cabin roof was also truncated on some machines to allow direct fire on the front, which usually wasn’t possible.
Here’s also a clean view of the chassis, thanks to @Condottiero :
THE CREW:
Same as the chassis the crew configuration was exactly copied from the previous version on the Fiat 18 BLR.
This meant that the machine counted 8 crewmembers total, a driver, a commander, two gunners, three loaders and a specialist to set the AA fuse.
Here you can see the crew both on the old and the new machine (again, the first one is the older version):
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While the driver and the commander seated in the cabin, the other six crewmembers seated in two makeshift benches on top of the frontal and the back ammo-rack.
We won’t see this in game as all six crewmembers in the back manned the gun during combat.
This high number of loaders meant that the machine was able to reach a rate of fire of 12 rounds per minute (5s reload).
ARMAMENT AND AMMO:
The gun was a 76/30 Armstrong mod. 1915 initially used on destroyers of the Regia Marina.
This gun, mounted on a pedestal, was able to rotate 360° and elevate from -5° to +70°, with only a limitation on the elevation on the frontal part of the machine, from +0° to +70° with the truncated cabin, and from +5° to +70° with the full cabin:
During WWII this gun was limited for AA use only, mainly due to the beliefs of the Italian High Command, and so its ammunitions were only limited to time-fused AA shells.
That’s why I want to suggest the introduction of the Granata Perforante that this gun used just prior to WWII:
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I think this will make the gun more appealing and, overall, more effective than with time-fuse HE only.
Also, while the penetration of the Perforante (APHE) will be rather on the medium-low side, those 319g of TNT filler (the other ones were too old and used black powder) will grant one-shot potential to it, if penetration is achieved.
And so, the ammunition available to this gun would be:
-Granata da 76/40 Contro Aerea (Time fuse HE): 6 Kg, 650g of explosive mass, 550m/s initial muzzle velocity, time fuse
-Granata da 76/40 Perforante: 5,870 Kg, 319g of explosive mass, 550 m/s initial muzzle velocity
For the ammunition storage the machine counted five separated ammo boxes, two in the front, near the cabin and three separate ones on the back (this picture is from the old installation on the Fiat 18 BLR, but please remember that the weapon platform was installed on the new chassis exactly the same way):
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For the number of shells that the machine was able to carry I had to dig around old prototypes of the 76mm cannon:
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Then, using the view of the old model and scaling it to match the scale of the prototype, I was able to guess the number of shells for each ammo box (again, please remember that the entire weapon system and its ammo were installed on the Lancia Ro in the exact same way):
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This meant that the vehicle was able to carry around 72 rounds.
STAT CARD:
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ILLUSTRATION (I had to heavily modify an already present illustration of this machine to match its correct configuration, it will be the first one that you’ll see):
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IN WARTHUNDER:
Being a direct response from the Regia Marina to the 75/27 CK su Ceirano 50, even if in extremely limited numbers, the machine behaved as a direct upgrade to the 75/27 one, with better overall mobility on every terrain and a slightly better gun.
As all the Autocannoni the machine offered no kind of protection to its although numerous crew, but, thanks to its fast reload (5s) and the almost granted one-shot potential of its APHE round (if penetration is achieved) I think this could be a fine starter machine.
If implemented with the truncated cabin it could also have no blind spots for the gun (only limited elevation angles on the front).
Like the 75/27 su Ceirano 50 this vehicle could be a nice starter for the Autocannone family, showing the players the strengths and weaknesses of these machines which, for those who have already played the Russian YaG-10 or the French CCKW 353, should be somewhat familiar.
I think that the only problem for its implementation will be the support legs.
They were deployed to counter the recoil of the gun while firing directly on the sides and in game, to avoid seeing them always dragging in the dirt, they could be removed at a price of an increased recoil while firing 90° from the vehicle main axis, both from the left or from the right.
Or, maybe in the future, we could see a “deploy” feature added. That could work pretty well on this machine as the legs mechanism was quite simple and their deployement only required a few moments to fix them.
SOURCES:
Nicola Pignato, Filippo Cappellano “Gli autoveicoli da combattimento dell’Esercito Italiano” Vol I
Nicola Pignato, Filippo Cappellano “Gli autoveicoli tattici e logistici del R.Esercito Italiano” tomo II
Filippo Cappellano “ “Batterie Volanti” autocannoni e artiglierie portate italiane”
Nicola Pignato “A century of Italian armored cars”
Ralph Riccio, Nicola Pignato “Italian truck-mounted artillery in action”
Ralph Riccio “Italian tanks and combat vehicles of WWII”
“L’artificiere d’artiglieria 1941”
“munizioni d’artiglieria italiane 1915-1918”
“dati tecnici delle artiglierie in servizio,1938”