Carro Armato M15/42 Centro Radio, the leader.

ImportantSimone5 · December 24, 2023, 5:30am

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Carro Armato M15/42 Centro Radio.

History.

The Royal Italian Army quickly noticed that the lack of radio equipment in the M11/39 tanks was a serious shortcoming, since in the heat of battle communicating using flags was complicated and risky. To solve this problem, from the M13/40 tank onwards the vehicles were equipped with radios capable of coordinating movements and attacks. However, battalion commanders still complained about not being able to communicate simultaneously between their own battalion and neighboring ones due to the low power of the onboard radios.This led to the development of the variant known as the Radio Center (or CR/C.R.), designed to act as a command tank and with each battalion having 2 of these vehicles assigned to it. Centro Radio tanks were standard M tanks equipped with a second radio that allowed long-distance communication between battalions. This tank proved to be quite successful and was produced in a good number of examples.

Modifications compared to the M15/42.

As a first modification, the two hull machine guns were removed and their mount was covered with a 25 mm thick plate in order to leave more space inside the tank for the use of radios. Furthermore, the anti-aircraft machine gun was removed. Two antennas were also added to both the right side (from the internal point of view of the tank) of the tank for radios. Beyond that, there were no other major changes known.

Specifications.

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Crew: 4
Mass: 15 tonnes
Length: 4,92 m
Width: 2,2 m
Height: 2,4 m
Maximum armour: 50 mm
Armament: 1x 47/40 Mod. 38 and 1x Breda 38
Engine: FIAT-SPA 15TB M.42 8 cilinders V, 190 cv
Maximum speed: 38km/h
Radios: 1x Magneti Marelli RF1CA (TR7) and 1x Magneti Marelli RF2 CA

Pictures and drawnings.

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