The L3/35 or Carro Veloce CV-35 was an Italian tankette that saw combat before and

during World War II.[1] Although designated a light tank by the Italian Army, its
turretless configuration, weight and firepower make it closer to contemporary
tankettes. It was the most numerous Italian armoured fighting vehicle and saw
service almost everywhere the Italians fought in World War II but proved inadequate
for modern warfare, having too thin armour and weak armament of only machine guns.
It was cheaply produced but because of its light armaments and armour it was
reserved to mostly colonial, policing, reconnaissance, and supply duties. However,
given its low production costs, proved to be efficient in the Second Italo-
Abyssinian War, Spanish Civil War and the Greco-Italian War where it provided
reliable support to Italian infantry and disrupted enemy lines. [1][2]

Development
The L3/35 was developed from the Carden Loyd Mark VI tankette, four of which were
imported from Britain in 1929.[3] The first vehicle developed by the Italians from
the Carden Lloyd tankette was designated CV-29; "CV" being an abbreviation of Carro
Veloce (Italian: "fast tank") and "29" as the year of adoption. Only twenty-one CV-
29s were built.[4]

L3/33
Main article: L3/33
In 1933, a new design was built jointly by the Fiat Company of Turin and the
Ansaldo Company of Genoa. This vehicle was introduced as the Fiat-Ansaldo CV-33.
About 300 CV-33s were built.[2]

L3/35
In 1935, a slightly improved model of the CV-33 was introduced and designated CV-
35. The primary differences were that the armour was bolted rather than riveted and
the single 6.5 mm machine gun was replaced with twin 8 mm machine guns.[2] Many
older CV-33s were retrofitted to meet the specifications of the CV-35. In 1938, the
vehicles were redesignated L3/33 ("L" for Leggero or 'light') and the L3/35.

L3/35 on display at the Military Museum, Belgrade.

L3/38
In 1938, a further development of the L3 design was designated L3/38. The L3/38 had
torsion bar suspension and two versions of a single mounted 13.2 mm machine gun.[3]

Italy retrofitted at least 12 L3/35s to meet the specifications of the L3/38. The
converted L3/35s with the L3/38's torsion bar suspension saw limited service in
September 1943 until June 1944. These L3/38s versions of the L3/35s were armed with
a single 13.2 mm Breda M31 machine gun.[citation needed]

Layout
The L3/35 was a lightly armoured two-man vehicle typically armed with twin 8 mm
machine guns, though variants were developed with other armament.[2] Other than the
number and type of machine guns, the differences between the L3/35 and the L3/33
were few. Both featured riveted and welded construction.

The vehicle's commander/gunner sat on the left and the driver sat on the right. The
engine was mounted transversely in the rear.[1] A circular radiator was mounted
behind the engine. The transmission went to the front to the final drive. The
Vickers-Carden-Lloyd type suspension had two three-wheel bogies on leaf spring and
a single unsprung wheel on each side. There was an acacia wood rail that the top
run of the tracks went on.[1]

Production and sales

Between 2,000 and 2,500 L3 tankettes were built in different models and variants
for the Royal Italian Army (Regio Esercito) and for other users.[2] Twenty L3/33
tankettes were sold to China. Other L3 tankettes were sold to Afghanistan (unknown
number), Albania (unknown number), Austria (72), Bolivia (14), Brazil (23),
Bulgaria (14), Croatia (10), Hungary (65), Iraq (16), Nationalist Spain, and
Venezuela (2).[2] Many foreign buyers substituted other machine guns as the main
armament. The Hungarians added a raised commander's vision cupola to 45 of the L3s
they acquired. In 1937, the Brazilian Army ordered 18 L3/35 tankettes, designated
Auto Metralhadora de Reconhecimento[5] which remained in active service until 1945
when some units were resold to the Dominican Republic. Venezuela bought two units
in 1934 for evaluation in infantry support operations, because of several incidents
on the border with Colombia, like other weapons acquired from the Italian mission
they did not survive past World War II.

Combat history

Italian L3/35 in the Balkans, August 1943.

Italian L3/35 in Albania, September 1943.

Close-up of Italian L3/35 in the Balkans, August 1943.

In addition to seeing action in the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, the Second Sino-
Japanese War, the Spanish Civil War, the Slovak-Hungarian War, and the Anglo-Iraqi
War, the L3 was used almost everywhere that Italian troops fought during World War
II.[1] L3s were found on the Italian/French border, North Africa, Italian East
Africa, the Balkans, USSR, Sicily, and Italy.[2]

The combat performance of the L3s during the interwar period was poor. On at least
two occasions during the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, L3s were put out of action
by massed infantry attacks. In the Spanish Civil War, L3s of the Corps of Volunteer
Troops (Corpo Truppe Volontarie, or CTV) were totally out-classed by the T-26 and
BT-5 tanks provided to the Republican forces by the Soviet Union. The L3s were not
a factor in the brief war between Hungary and Slovakia in 1939.[citation needed]

On 10 June 1940, when Italy entered World War II, the Royal Italian Army (Regio
Esercito) possessed only about one-hundred M11/39 medium tanks in two tank
battalions. L3 tankettes still equipped all three Italian armoured divisions, the
tank battalions in the motorized divisions, the light tank squadron group in each
"Fast" (Celere) division, and numerous independent tank battalions.

On 22 March 1941, two Iraqi L3s were reported to have been put out of action near
Fallujah during the Anglo-Iraqi War.

More than 40 captured L3 tankettes were used by the Greek Army during the Greco-
Italian War, fought from 1940 to 1941, and were used to equip the 19th Mechanized
Division, although they did not take part in combat with the latter. After the
invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece in April 1941, L3 tankettes were also captured by
the Yugoslav and Greek resistance forces. From 1941, some L3 tankettes were given
to the Italo-German puppet government of the Independent State of Croatia
(Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, or NDH).

Though numerous, Italy's tankettes proved to be outclassed from the start and also
proved to be of low tactical value. They were vulnerable to the British Boys anti-
tank rifles.[6] Other than those used for occupation duties in the Balkans and
elsewhere, few L3s remained in front line service past the end of 1940. After the
Italian armistice with the Allies in 1943, L3 tankettes were used by German Army
forces and by the pro-Nazi National Republican Army of the Italian Social Republic.
Hungarian L3s had by this point been issued to the Gendarmerie.

L3/35s also joined the Chinese Nationalist Army fighting against the Japanese
Imperial Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Communists during the
Chinese Civil War.

Variants

A captured L3 cc (left) and an L3/35 (right) outside Bardia in 1941.

Italian tankettes advancing with a L3 Lf flame thrower tank in the lead at the
Battle of Guadalajara.
The L3/35 appeared in several variants including an anti-tank variant and a flame
thrower variant.

L3 cc anti-tank
The "L3 cc" anti-tank (controcarro) was an L3 with a Solothurn 20 mm anti-tank
rifle mounted in place of its normal machine gun armament. Only a few were so
modified, and they saw action only in North Africa.[1]

The Solothurn rifle could penetrate up to 18 mm of armor at 300 m (328 yards) which
was effective against lightly armoured vehicles.[7]

L3 Lf flamethrower
Development of the "L3 Lf" flamethrower (lancia fiamme) flame tank began in 1935.
The flamethrower nozzle replaced one of the machine guns, and the flame fuel was
carried in an armoured 500-litre (133 US gallons) fuel trailer towed by the
vehicle. Later versions carried another 60 litres of fuel in a box-shaped tank
mounted above the L3's engine compartment. The vehicle weighed 5 metric tons.

The L3 Lf saw action in Abyssinia, Spain, France, the Balkans, North Africa, and
Italian East Africa. From 1936 each CV/L3 company had a single L3 Lf platoon.[8]

L3 Centro Radio command tank

The basic L3 platform was also employed as a command vehicle using the Marelli RF1
CA radio in platoon and company command vehicles. The L3 was considered too small
to be effectively employed as a regimental level command radio vehicle so this task
fell to the later and slightly larger L6/40 CR (Centro Radio = Radio Center).[8]

L3 Passerella bridge layer

The few L3 Passerella (bridge layer) vehicles constructed were assigned to units at
Armoured Brigade levels. The 7-meter-long (23 ft) bridge was stripped down into
sections on a trailer towed by the L3 itself for travel. On arriving at the combat
zone, this bridge was assembled on the front of the tank, suspended by cables from
two small cranes located over the crew's superstructure. The crew laid the
completed bridge over the obstacle from within the vehicle. A L3 Passerella crew
took seven minutes to lay out this bridge.[9]

Planned variants
A single Savoia-Marchetti SM.82 aircraft was modified to carry a L3/33 recessed
under the fuselage for experiments with airborne armour.[10]

Carro Veloce Recupero

Unarmed armoured recovery vehicle with a rear tow bar, did not progress beyond the
prototype stage.[10]

Semovente L3 da 47/32
Tank destroyer with a 47 mm L/32 gun mounted in the hull, based on the L3/35. At
least one built but did not enter service.[10]

L3 tank
Tank built by Fiat-Ansaldo in 1937 on the L3/33 chassis with a redesigned hull and
a 20 mm gun in a rotating turret. Did not enter serial production.[10]
Aborted Spanish upgrade
On 8 August 1937, Major General García Pallasar had received a note from
Generalísimo Francisco Franco which expressed the need for a Panzer I armed with a
20 mm gun. Although originally forty Italian L3/35 tankettes were ordered with the
original armament exchanged for the 20 mm Breda Model 35 instead, this order was
subsequently cancelled after it was thought that the adaptation of the same gun to
the German Panzer I would yield better results.[11]