Semovente da 75/34

The Semovente da 75/34 was an Italian self-propelled gun of the Second World War, built by mounting a 75 mm L/34 gun in a fixed casemate on the chassis of the M15/42 medium tank. It followed the Semovente da 75/18, whose short howitzer had been effective mainly through its HEAT shells, and was meant to give Italian armoured units a gun with better anti-tank capability. Production began in spring 1943, and about sixty M42 vehicles were finished before the Italian armistice of September 1943. Its frontal armour was a single 42 mm plate, and the same 192 horsepower petrol engine as the M15/42 gave a top speed of about 38 kilometres per hour. The Regio Esercito used it only briefly, in the unsuccessful defence of Rome on 8 to 10 September 1943, when a dozen vehicles served with the Ariete division. The Germans seized the survivors and kept building the type under their own direction, so that roughly 170 were made in all by 1945, and they used it in Italy and the Balkans.