Carro Armato M15/42

The Carro Armato M15/42 was the last Italian medium tank produced during the Second World War. It was built on the earlier M13/40 and M14/41 with the lessons of the North African campaign in mind, and it was meant as a stopgap until the heavier P26/40 could be made in numbers. It was 12 centimetres longer than the M14/41, with a new 47 mm/L40 gun in a fully rotating, electrically driven turret and a new 190 horsepower SPA 15TB M42 petrol engine, chosen because diesel fuel was short in Italy. Production began only on 1 January 1943, when the design was already obsolete. It never served in North Africa, but Italian units used it against German troops around Rome after the armistice, and it later served with German forces in Yugoslavia.