- Yes
- No
General Info
The story of the Fiat 6616 began during the early 1970’s, Italy post WW2 had heavily relied on vehicles provided by outside nations, such as America. As more and more restrictions surrounding the making of military equipment eased up, Fiat assisted by OTO Melara had started to design a new family of light vehicles in hopes that they’d be used to replace and equip several sectors of the Italian armed forces. The first to come out would be the Fiat 6614, which the first prototype would be complete by 1972. Its main role was to act as a troop transport, but it would go on to serve in multiple roles. The Fiat 6614 in terms of survivalbility did not have the best armor, and mainly was only protected against low caliber fire. It would be made out of welded steel, with an overall thickness of 8mm around the vehicle. Due to this it was mainly used in more supportive roles, and rarely ever in the front-lines. What it lacked in armor however, it made up with mobility. It would be propelled by a IVECO 8062.24 diesel engine, which allowed the Fiat 6614 to reach speeds of up to 100km an hour, giving it a total range of around 700km. Another good thing about it is that it could be amphibious so if there was a need to traverse bodies of water, the 6614 was able to do that. Italy would order quite a lot of them, and would go on to serve in the Italian Army, Air force and also the police as an anti-riot vehicle. Italy began to experiment on variants of the 6614 which could be used more in a offensive role, one of the experiments would see itself be armed with an M40 recoiless rifle. One of the more obscure variants is the one that would go on to mount the BPD Firos-6 MLRS system. The Firos-6 was a lightweight MLRS weapon system which would see itself be armed with up to 48 51mm rockets. The actual launcher would weigh only 250kg, it would be 2m long, 0.51m wide and 0.93 high. The system would be able to turn around 360 degrees, and their elevation angles would range from -5 degrees to +45 degrees. The actual 51mm rocket would be 1m long and weighed 4.8kg, when fired from the system the rocket could reach the maximum range of 550m after a flight of only 39 seconds. The Firos-6 had to also be somewhat multi-role so therefore there were several different types of warheads available, which included both AT-AP (Anti Tank, Anti Personnel) and HE. The system was quite powerful overall, its rate of fire was of 10 rockets per second, however according to some sources reloading the launcher would last a maximum of 5 minutes. The Firos (Field rocket system) family was mainly marketed towards Italy, but if that failed they would move unto the export market. The family would begin to see itself being developed starting from 1970 by a company named BPD (Bombrini Parodi Delfino). In their times BPD were the leading national effort in the development of rocket propulsion devices in Italy. Considering the system was lightweight, it could easily be installed on the Fiat 6614 hull, the prototype would be presented to the Italian high command, alongside another variant of the Firos-6 system that was mounted unto an Italian Land rover. Sadly although the system did what it meant meant to do, the Italian high command would not go unto set any purchase orders. Due to this BPD would attempt to sell the system to other countries, with some success. More famously the Mexican navy would go unto buy up to 6 systems of the Firos-6 system, although they opted to have theirs installed unto a variant of the ACMAT Jeep. The Fiat 6614 would however become a very sought after vehicle around the world with great export market success. Countries such as South Korea would go unto actually license producing the vehicle, others such as Libya and Somalia would instead order them and put them in service with their respective armed forces. Italy would go unto use the Fiat 6614 in multiple different theaters of war, and although in Italy most have been put out of service, a few police units still posses the Fiat 6614 in inventory in case of emergency. Other nations like Somalia would use in actively and would end up participating in the Somali civil war.
Armament+Equipment
51mm AT-AP Rockets (Anti Tank, Anti Personnel)
51mm HE Rockets
51mm HE-FRAG Rockets
51mm Smoke Rockets
Specifications
Spoiler
Why i think it should be added to war thunder.
In my honest opinion the Italian tech tree clearly lacks plenty of vehicles, which is understandable due to it being semi-new, it seems like every major update Gaijin has added at least one new italian vehicle. The thing is there’s plenty of vehicles such as the one im suggesting that could potentially fill in the gaps and give the tree a little more popularity. As of now Italy currently only has a few rocket vehicles, that being the M113 TOW. Compared to nations such as Russia or america, they get plenty of vehicles with rockets. This particular vehicle did exist, and its very unique, adding it overall would most likely lead to some fun moments and hopefully will become a nice addition to the game.
Sources
Spoiler
Century of Italian armored cars - Nicola Pignato
L’AUTOBLINDO FIAT-6616 di Filippo Cappellano
Autoveicoli da combattimento dell’Esercito Italiano Dal 1956 al 1975 volume 4 (book)
Armies and Weapons 16 March 1975
Janes Armor and Artillery 1986-1987
BPD FIROS-6 Brochure
Vojnotehnicki glasnik 5 1991
FIROS-30 - РСЗО - армия - Справочник - Fact Military
JOURNAL OF ITALIAN ARMY 1988 N.1 "RIVISTA MILITARE" by Biblioteca Militare - Issuu
http://warstudy.com/theory/modern/weapon_system/02/007.xml
Italian MRLs
SI VIS PACEM, PARA BELLUM: Autoblindo OTO MELARA - FIAT 6614
Fiat CM6614 - Wikipedia
FIROS - Wikipedia
Army Guide
http://warstudy.com/theory/modern/weapon_system/02/007.xml
https://www.forecastinternational.com/archive/disp_pdf.cfm?DACH_RECNO=355
Army Guide
Photos
Spoiler
