World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseIn 1929, Italy purchased four Carden Loyd Mark VI tankettes from the United Kingdom; based on those units, a line of Carro Veloce, "fast tank", designs emerged in the 1930s. They had bolted armor and two machine guns in tandem. In 1938, these tankettes were re-designated as L3 light tanks, although they were technically tankettes based on Anglo-American standards. Between 2,000 and 2,500 L3 tankettes were built between 1933 and 1936. In the 1930s, they were sold to various nations such as Afghanistan, Albania, Austria, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, China, Greece, Hungary, Iraq, and Nationalist Spain.

ww2dbaseL3 tankettes were used by Italian forces in the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, Nationalist Spanish forces during the Spanish Civil War, and Hungarian forces in the brief Slovak-Hungarian War of 1939. They were not considered effective tankettes; on at least two occasions in Ethiopia, for example, L3 tankettes were disabled by massed infantry attacks. After the European War began, they were used in all theaters that Italian troops were deployed, despite of their weaknesses. They were soon vastly out-classed by the light and medium tanks used by the British forces in North Africa, rendering them to be used only as pillboxes. Some of them were captured and used by Yugoslav and Greek resistance forces, while some units were given by Italy to Germany's puppet government in Croatia to fight local resistance groups.

SPECIFICATIONS

L3/35

Machinery	One FIAT-SPA CV3 water cooled engine rated at 43hp
Armament	2x8mm machine guns in tandem
Armor	6-14mm
Crew	2
Length	3.17 m
Width	1.40 m
Height	1.30 m
Weight	3.0 t
Speed	42 km/h
Range	125 km

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