L3/33

The Carro Veloce 33, or CV 33, renamed L3/33 in 1938, was an Italian tankette first built in 1933 and used by the Italian Army before and during the Second World War. It grew out of the British Carden Loyd tankette that Italy imported and licence-built as the CV 29, and a companion article on the L3/35 records that the 1933 design was built jointly by Fiat of Turin and Ansaldo of Genoa and introduced as the Fiat-Ansaldo CV-33. The original carried a crew of two behind 12 mm of welded armour and a single 6.5 mm machine gun. In 1935 many CV 33s were retrofitted to the specification of the CV 35, and in 1938 the two were renamed L3/33 and L3/35. Variants included an anti-tank version with a 20 mm gun and a flamethrower tank towing an armoured fuel trailer. The type saw action in China, Spain, France, the Balkans, North Africa, Italian East Africa, Italy and Russia, and survivors stand in museums at Canberra, Bovington, Beijing and Belgrade.