Semovente da 75/18

The Semovente da 75/18 was an Italian self-propelled gun of the Second World War, built by fitting the short 75 mm Obice da 75/18 modello 34 mountain howitzer into a fixed, riveted casemate on the hull of an M13/40, M14/41 or M15/42 medium tank. It was conceived after Colonel Sergio Berlese, the designer of the howitzer, proposed an Italian counterpart to the German StuG III assault gun. The first prototype was delivered on 10 February 1941 and the first batch of 60 reached North Africa in January 1942. The three-man crew served a gun with a low muzzle velocity that suited hollow-charge shells, which could pierce about 80 mm of armour at 500 metres, so the vehicle was used both as divisional artillery and, against its design role, as a tank destroyer. It fought in the Western Desert and Sicily, and after the 1943 armistice the Germans seized about 131 and authorised 55 more. Several survive in museums.