- Yes
- No
General Info
The story of the AV-90 began in the year 1988, after a few of the OTO-Melara C-13’s were being tested and modified with various armaments, for the hopes for it to be exported,Germany had shown some interest, and wanted to work together with Italy on making something based of the C-13 design to replace the aging fleet of American M113’s APC’s both countries had. This eventually lead to a co-operative agreement to be struck between Mak System Gesellschaft of Germany and OTO Melara of Italy, to create what we know as the AV-90 (which stood for Armoured vehicle 90). The main reason Germany chose Italy as a partner due to the previous work OTO Melara had done, knowing they had experience in the field. It shared heavy resemblance to the OTO C-13 from the exterior, since that would be what it was based off, however a lot internal components such as the power pack and a new cooling system were from German origin. One of the many upsides for customers was the fact that both Italian and German components would have no licencing restrictions applied to them, this was done mainly so customers of the vehicle could licence produce the vehicle in their respective countries. The funding for this vehicle was jointly lead by both respective companies and testing for this vehicle kept on continuing upwards to the year 1999, however eventually Germany decided to stop the funding and give up on the program, my guess is due to more indigenous designs they were working on and the possibility of not having a need for this vehicle anymore. The vehicle was in a way, a mid-life update to what the C-13 was, mainly thanks to the sheer amount of advancements made on the vehicle. In terms of armaments, the ones we 100% can confirm the AV-90 ever fitted with would be 12.7mm machine guns and the OTO Melara Hitfist 60/70A. This Italian made 60mm weapon would originate from the Italian-Israeli collaboration of the 60mm HVMS, what ended up happening after the split was both respective countries going their separate ways when developing the cannon. For Italy that meant that 2 versions would come out, a manual 60mm and an auto-loaded 60mm. The 60mm system was tested on multiple different vehicles during its time, such as a Centauro, Fiat 6616 and eventually also fitted unto the AV-90. It could hold up to 32 rounds, 16 which would be ready to fire. The auto-loader would allow the vehicle to fire every 2 seconds, whilst the manual version of the 60mm would fire every 6 seconds. Ammunition that the AV-90 could fire included 60mm APFSDS and HE. The AV-90 used the TURMS FCS, which was present on the C1 Ariete and B1 Centauro series of vehicles. The turret had an SFIM SP-T-694 two-axes stabilized panoramic binocular periscope, which would be jointly developed by SFIM and Officine Galileo. It would be mounted on the right of the turret and controlled with a joystick present inside the vehicle. In addition, it would have a 16-bit fully digital microprocessor with a magnification ranging from 2.5x and 10x on the day channel and from 2.5x to 6x for the night channel. Other armament options were kept from the original C-13 series of vehicles, so in theory if a country was interested in the vehicle, it would be compatible with a TUA (Tow under armor) launcher, Sidam 4x25mm anti-aircraft gun mount, 90mm cannon and finally 20/25mm automatic cannons. One of the many improvements from the C-13 that really allowed to differentiate the vehicle from the other was the overall increase in protection. The AV-90 was fitted with add-on armor, thanks to the advancements done during the development of the VCC-80 set of vehicles. Another advancement mainly done thanks to the German side of the collaboration, would be the addition of new modern radio systems, which heavily improved the communication abilities of the vehicle. To be better suited in harsher more warmer climates, it would be outfitted with a Bher cooling system, which guaranteed full-load operations of the AV-90 of up to 50°C. In terms of speed, the AV-90 was powered by a MTU 8V 183 TA22, a water-cooled diesel engine which was derived by the Daimler-Benz OM 442 A. This allowed the AV-90 to reach speeds of up to 64km an hour, with a max range of around 762km. Other changes included the introduction of the ZF LSG 1500 automatic shift/steer transmission, and a new power-pack which was placed in front of the engine compartment. Overall only a few prototypes were made, around 6 in total although sources sometime conflict with each other. This project was very promising, but ultimately due to a shift of priorities nothing ever came out of it. Nowadays, most of the prototypes are in Italy, one for example lays inside of the OTO Melara factory in La Spezia, awaiting restoration, for the eventual musealization of the vehicle at the Museo della Melara in Italy.
Armament+Equipment
x1 OTO Melara Hitfist 60/70A
(Could fire 60mm APFSDS and HE-VT munitions)
x1 12.7 or 7.62 machine-gun
Thermal/night vision devices
x8 Smoke discharges
(Armament options from previous OTO Melara C-13 family of vehicles was kept, so AV-90 could also be armed with the following:
TOW Under Armor (TUA) launcher
OTO TC-20 & TC-25 (20mm and 25mm autocannon)
OTO CKL T-90 (90mm cannon)
Sidam 1x4 25mm (Anti-air)
Specifications
Spoiler
(Platform and Armament)
Why it should be in game
It should be in game due to it being a potential vehicle a lot of people would love to use and fill up the Italian tech tree with a unique design not many people heard of. It would play similarly to the VCC-80/60, but could be placed at a lower BR as a GE Premium or Squadron vehicle.
Sources
Spoiler
Museo Della Melara Archives
Various Janes Armor and Artillery books
OTO Melara-MAK System AV-90 brochure
Janes IDR 1989
Oto Melara 1905-2005
Okloponi transporter AV 90 - Miordrag dedeic
https://www.militarypedia.it/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/OtoMelara-C13.pdf
https://www.forecastinternational.com/archive/disp_old_pdf.cfm?ARC_ID=1121
Jane's Defence Weekly - Google Libri
Jane's Armour and Artillery - Google Libri
Think TANK - page 63 - Sezione Esercito
ITA - OTO Melara Hitfist 60/70 (věžový komplet) : Weapons of ground equipment
Photos
