Category: WW2 RSI Armor

Repubblica Sociale Italiana (1943-1945)
Medium Tank – 710 Built, Less Than 25 In RSI Service

The Carro Armato M13/40 was the most widely produced Italian tank during the Second World War, with a total of 710 examples produced between early 1940 and mid 1941. It was used mainly by the Italian Regio Esercito (English: Royal Army) in the North African campaign.

After the Italian Armistice of 8th September 1943, some Carri Armati M13/40s remained on the Italian mainland for training or other tasks and were taken over by soldiers of the German Wehrmacht and by Fascist soldiers still loyal to Mussolini. In their hands, these tanks would be deployed against both partisans and the advancing Allied forces.

It is known that at least 11 were used by Repubblica Sociale Italiana or RSI (English: Italian Social Republic) units, along with 14 more medium tanks. Unfortunately, for the other 14 tanks, the sources do not specify which precise model they are, referring to them as ‘Carri M’ (English: Medium Tanks). Based on the Second World War era documents, it is only possible to confirm that they were Carri Armati M13/40s or Carri Armati M14/41s.

Italian Peninsula after the Armistice

After the end of the North African Campaign, Fascism began to lose support among the Italian population, exhausted by the Allied bombings, in crisis due to the embargoes and with most of the men deployed in war. Citizens no longer believed in Benito Mussolini’s promises.

On 10th July 1943, the Allied troops began the invasion of Italy with landings in Sicily. With these landings, even more support was lost by the Fascists, who had failed to organize a defense to protect their own country.

Thanks to the critical situation, the King of Italy, Vittorio Emanuele III, along with some Fascist politicians who had lost confidence in Mussolini and his ideology, carried out a coup on 25th June 1943, 15 days after the allies landed in Sicily. Mussolini was arrested and transferred to many places to maintain his position secret from the Italians still loyal to him and from the German secret services.

The same day of Mussolini’s arrest, the King created a new monarchic government with General Marshal Pietro Badoglio as Prime Minister. Almost immediately, Badoglio’s government tried to arrange an armistice with the Allied forces. This Armistice was signed on 3rd September 1943 and made public only at 1942 hrs. on 8th September 1943.

Between 9th and 23rd September, the Germans occupied all the territories under Italian control, capturing over a million of Italian soldiers and killing about 20,000. Thousands of tonnes of military equipment were captured, including 977 Armored Fighting Vehicles (AFVs).

However, some of the Italian soldiers, still loyal to Mussolini, immediately surrendered to the Germans without fighting or joined them against the Yugoslavian partisans in the Balkans and against the Allied troops in the Southern part of the peninsula. In fact, on 3rd September 1943, the Allied troops had disembarked on the Italian Peninsula.

Repubblica Sociale Italiana

On 12th September 1943, Mussolini was freed from his last prison. He had been jailed in a hotel on the Gran Sasso, a 2,912 m high mountain about 120 km from Rome. Thanks to a unit of German Fallschirmjäger (English: Paratroopers) that landed with two Fieseler Fi 156 ‘Storch’ liaison planes, he was freed and left the mountain to go to Munich, Germany.

On 14th September 1943, he met Adolf Hitler in Rastenburg where, for 2 days, they spoke about the future of the northern part of Italy, which was still under German control.

On 17th September 1943, Mussolini spoke for the first time on Radio Munich, saying to the Italian population that he was alive and that a new Fascist government would be created in the part of the Italian peninsula not yet occupied by the Allied forces.

On 23rd September 1943, Mussolini returned to Italy and the Repubblica Sociale Italiana was officially created. In Salò, a small city near Brescia, Lombardia region, many offices and headquarters of the new republic were created. For this reason, in Italy, the Repubblica Sociale Italiana is also known as Repubblica di Salò (English: Salò Republic).

The New Armies

The new Repubblica Sociale Italiana’s army was the new Esercito Nazionale Repubblicano or ENR (English: National Republican Army). This was composed, during its 20 months of existence, of a total of 300,000 soldiers. Mussolini and Hitler had planned to form 25 divisions of which 5 armored divisions and 10 motorized divisions.

During the 20 years of Fascist government in Italy, all the paramilitary and police corps in Italy were substituted with militias: harbor militia, railway militia, etcetera.

After the Armistice, all these militias were united and renamed Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana or GNR (English: National Republican Guard). It was composed of over 140,000 militiamen and soldiers that mostly fought partisan units or as Police duty units in the main cities.

The two armies were supported by the Squadre d’Azione delle Camicie Nere (English: Auxiliary Corps of the Action Squads of the Black Shirts).

The Auxiliary Corps of the Action Squads of the Black Shirts were simply known as the ‘Brigate Nere’ (English: Black Brigades). They were under the control of the Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana and were born from the necessity for small units to be located in the small cities of Italy as garrisons to stop partisan formations.

The reason for the constitution of the Black Brigades is to be found mainly in the attempt to preserve the life and property of the republican fascists and to constitute auxiliary units, well rooted in the territory where they operated (most of the members were born and lived in the cities where they operated) and to be used in the fight against the partisans.

During their existence, the Black Brigades were also used to help bigger units in anti-partisan operations, to maintain public order in the cities and to prevent partisan sabotage against sensible targets in the cities.

Design

The Carro Armato M13/40, which, after 14th August 1942, was renamed in official designations into M40, was the first Italian medium tank equipped with the main armament in a rotating turret during the war. It was developed from the Carro Armato M11/39, with which shared many parts of the chassis and the suspension.

The Carro Armato M11/39 was developed in the 1930s with the task of fighting in the Italian mountains. In fact, the Italian High Command in the 1920s and 1930s thought that, in case a second Great War broke out, it would fight like during the first one, in the mountains of northern Italy.

For these reasons, the Carro Armato M11/39 had the 37 mm main armament on the right hand of the frontal hull armored plate and the secondary armament in a rotating one-man turret.

The new Carro Armato M13/40 reversed the gun positions, with a new 47 mm main gun coupled with a coaxial machine gun in the turret, with a depression of -15°, and an elevation of +25° and 2 coupled machine guns in a spherical support on the right side of the casemate.

The armor was 30 mm thick on the front of the casemate, 25 mm on sides and rear and 14 mm roof and floor. The horse-shoe-shaped turret had 40 mm thick armored plates on the gun mantlet and 25 mm on side and rear.

The crew was composed of 4 soldiers. The driver was on the left side of the hull, the machine gunner/radio operator on the right, the loader on the left side of the turret, and the commander/gunner on the right side.

Operational use

Esercito Nazionale Repubblicano

The new RSI High Command, composed of the new War Minister, Marshal of Italy Rodolfo Graziani, and Chief of General Staff General Gastone Gambara, already Regio Esercito’s generals.

During a private meeting with Adolf Hitler in Rastenburg on 13th October 1943, Marshal Graziani spoke with the German dictator about Italian armored units. The German Generals had no more confidence in the Italians but, thanks to Graziani, Hitler agreed to train the Italian tank crews in Germany and in Italy, but with German instructors.

Three days after, on 16th October, in the same Prussian city, Italian General Secretary of the Ministry of War, Colonel Emilio Canevari, met German General Walther Buhle, Chief of the Army Staff of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW), to discuss about Italian armored units.

Incredibly, they planned to train enough Italian crew members at the Panzertruppenschule (English: Tank Troop School) Wünsdorf near Bergen to equip 4 different units (not known if battalions or companies or other types), which would then be assigned to 4 different Italian infantry divisions. They also planned to do this a second time, creating another 4 armored units which would then be assigned to other divisions, and a 9th one to be equipped with German armored fighting vehicles by the end of 1944.

After a brainstorming with the German Heeresgruppe B on 26th October 1943, the Italian High Command ordered the Console (English: Consul) General Alessandro Lusana, commander of the 1ª Divisione Corazzata Camicie Nere ‘M’ (English: 1st Black Shirt Armored Division), also known as the 1ª Divisione Corazzata Legionaria ‘M’ (English: 1st Legionary Armored Division, where ‘M’ stands for Benito Mussolini) to send 268 tank crew members, mechanics and specialists to San Michele, 38 km from Verona. In the letter, the Italian High Command urged Console Generale Lusana to send the soldiers as quickly as possible, and that his men should be in San Michele by 30th October. After this decision, the plan to train Italian crew members in the Panzertruppenschule of Wünsdorf was aborted.

The document for the creation of the school, written by Heeresgruppe B, arrived to Colonel Canavari only on 29th October 1943. In that document, the Germans listed all the Italian personnel that they needed to open the Reparto Addestramento (English: Training Unit) of the Scuola Carristi (English: Tank Crew School) of San Michele. Food, equipment, uniforms, barracks, and canteens would be provided by the Wehrmacht.

In total, 286 soldiers (of 268 planned) of the 1ª Divisione Corazzata Camicie Nere ‘M’ arrived in San Michele from Rome, of which 173 were tank crew members, 15 mechanics and 20 radio operators. The others were officers and specialists with other tasks.

However, it is unclear to which unit the 286 soldiers belonged. In fact, on that date, the 1ª Divisione Corazzata Camicie Nere ‘M’ was already renamed Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ and was transferred to Montichiari, near Brescia, and only the 1st Armored Division’s command had remained in Rome, in the militia’s headquarters at Caserma Mussolini (English: Mussolini Barracks) in Viale Romania.

Between late 1943 and the early weeks of 1944, many other Italian tank crew members arrived in San Michele, while many others were sent to Verona, where a former Regio Esercito tank unit had its headquarters. These men would be used for other training in the future.

The High Command planned to create three companies at the training school: an Armored Car Training Company, a Light Tank Training Company and a Tank Hunter Training Company.

1° Deposito Carristi

On 20th February 1944, the RSI High Command renamed the old 32° Reggimento Fanteria Carrista (English: 32nd Tank Crew Infantry Regiment) of Verona into the 1° Deposito Carristi (English: 1st Tank Crew Depot) in order to replace the old Monarchic names.

In the same document, the High Command ordered the disbanding of the 31° Reggimento Fanteria Carrista (English: 31st Tank Crew Infantry Regiment) of Siena by 29th February 1944. All the soldiers and materiel from the former 31st Regiment were then moved to Verona. However, a Lieutenant Colonel, a Captain, 6 Lieutenants, 41 Second Lieutenants, 17 NCOs and 30 crew members volunteered for the training school of San Michele on 5th February 1944.

After April 1944, the Scuola Carristi of San Michele ceased to exist. Probably all the men and tanks (of which no numbers and models are known) were given to the 1° Deposito Carristi.

The new 1° Deposito Carristi on 14th April 1944 was theoretically composed (unfortunately, lack of documents do not allow us to understand if they were completed or not) of a Depot Command, Logistic office, Administration office and an Enlistment and rookies office, with a total of 14 officers, 16 NCOs and 46 soldiers.

The commander of the 1° Deposito Carristi was, at first, Lieutenant Colonel Enrico dell’Uva but, between March and May 1944, the Lt. Colonel left his position to Lieutenant Colonel Pietro Calini.

On 23rd February, a document was sent from the Ufficio Operazioni e Servizi of the Stato Maggiore dell’Esercito (English: Operations and Services Office of the Army General Staff) to all the Fascist Comandi Militari Regionali (English: Military Regional Commands). This asked them to send all the already trained tank drivers, tank commanders, radio operators and tank mechanics under their command to the 1° Deposito Carristi.

This meant that, in February 1944, the High Command was in such a desperate situation that they had to take all the tank crew members already trained before the Armistice in order to equip the armored units. However, on 28th February 1944 General Gastone Gambara of the Ufficio Operazioni e Servizi of the Stato Maggiore dell’Esercito sent a phonic message to the Comando Militare del Veneto (English: Veneto’s Military Command).
The Italian general ordered the soldiers of the 1° Deposito Carristi to be sent at the Centro Costruzione Grandi Unità (English: Division’s Building Center) of Vercelli to form tank destroyer self-propelled guns companies. In mid May 1944 6 officers and 106 crew members under Captain Giovanni dalla Fontana were sent to the Centro Costruzione Grandi Unità and to be trained and assigned at the 1ª Divisione Bersaglieri ‘Italia’ and to the 2ª Divisione Granatieri ‘Littorio’. Another 4 officers were sent to Sennelager, in Germany but they returned to Verona a month after.

When it was created the 1° Deposito Carristi had in its ranks: 2 Carri Armati M13/40s, 1 Semovente M43 da 105/25 and an unknown number of trucks in various efficiency status.

The 1° Deposito Carristi needed more equipment and sent soldiers to search for equipment in many former Regio Esercito depots, trying to find any kind of abandoned military stuff.

Military Equipment recovered by the 1° Deposito Carristi
Former unit	City	Equipment recovered
	Bologna	20 tonnes of equipment and a damaged Carro Armato L3 light tank
433° Battaglione Carrista	Fidenza	u/k
	Reggio Emilia	4 Carri M (probably medium tanks), previously sabotaged
Centro Addestramento Carristi	Cordenons	10.7 tonnes of equipment including: Renault R35 hull and Somua S35 spare parts

With this new equipment, in May 1944, the 1° Deposito Carristi had 3 Carri Armati M13/40s and 3 Carri Armati M15/42s. All were non-operational and, on 17th May 1944, Lt. Col. Calini wrote a letter to the 203° Comando Militare Regionale (English: 203rd Military Regional Command) asking for permission to purchase material for repairs, since the production of Italian tanks was under German control after 8th September 1943. The Germans no longer trusted the Italian soldiers and did not share spare parts or armored vehicles with the Italian Repubblica Sociale Italiana.

On 31st May 1944, the 203° Comando Militare Regionale authorized the purchase of resources on the civilian market, but at the same time, ordered that all salvageable material be recovered from the Regio Esercito depots abandoned the previous year in order to save money. Thanks to this “4 Carri Armati M13/40s could be prepared” even if the military command probably meant 4 medium tanks, in fact the 1° Deposito Carristi would never have 4 Carri Armati M13/40s in its ranks.

From a report written on 17th June 1944 by Lieutenant Colonel Amedeo Reggio, the presence of 2 Carri Armati M13/40s and a Carro Armato L3 tank in running condition is confirmed. He also mentioned that those tanks were sometimes used in support of GNR units in the region for anti-partisan operations, but also that, if the War Ministry needed them, the tanks could be made available.

Reggio complained about the lack of fuel and lubricants, which could be bought on the civilian market (but he needed the approval of the Military Command), and for lack of spare parts and specialized mechanics to repair the other tanks. Another serious problem was the lack of ammunition for the tanks, especially for the 47/40 cannons of the Carri Armati M15/42s and for the 105/25 howitzer of the semovente they had.

With the equipment in its ranks the 1° Deposito Carristi was composed of 1° Battaglione Addestramento (English: 1st Training Battalion). It had an unspecified number of training companies, the only known was the 1ª Compagnia Addestramento (English: 1st Training Company) but, due the presence of 3 Compagnia Deposito Carristi (English: Tank Crew Depot Companies) numbered from 4ª to 6ª, it is logical to assume that the training companies were 3 in total, probably a light tanks one, medium tank one and a self-propelled guns one.

In total, on 17th June 1944, the 1° Deposito Carristi had in its depots:

• 1 Semovente M43 da 105/25 – non-operational
• 3 Carri Armati M15/42s – non-operational
• 3 Carri Armati M13/40s – 2 in running condition, 1 non-operational
• 3 Carri Armati L3/35s – 1 in running condition, 2 non-operational
• 1 Carro Armato L6/40 – non-operational
• 1 FIAT 15 TER ¹
• 2 FIAT 18 BLRs ¹
• 1 FIAT 618 ¹
• 2 Ceirano C50s ¹
• 1 FIAT 626 ¹
• 1 Lancia Ro NM ¹
• 1 Lancia 3Ro ¹
• 1 Ceirano 47CM fuel carrier – non-operational
• 1 Ceirano 47CM fire truck – non-operational
• 1 FIAT 508 Spider – running condition
• 1 FIAT 508 Berlina – running condition
• 1 Guzzi 500 Sport 14 motorcycle²
• 1 Bianchi 500 M motorcycle²
• 1 Benelli 500 motor tricycle²

(¹ of these 9 trucks 4 were in running conditions, 5 non-operational, ² of these only one non-operational)

However, Lt. Col. Reggio pointed out that all vehicles in running condition needed repairs or maintenance in order to be 100% operational.

During its existence the 1° Deposito Carristi delivered trained crew members or tank mechanics to various Italian and German armored units, including: the Gruppo Squadroni Corazzati ‘San Giusto’, the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leoncello’, 1ª Divisione Bersaglieri ‘Italia’ and to the 26. Panzer Division.

1° Deposito Carristi Ranks
Data	Officers	Non-Commissioned Officers	Crew members
14th April 1944	14	16	46
1st May 1944	6	22	245
30th May 1944	29	26	85

The repair of many vehicles was really slow due the fact that many mechanics were enlisted in other armored units and sent to other Italian cities leaving only few well trained mechanics in Verona.

The High Command of the Fascist Army answered on 15 July 1944, accepting all requests of Lt. Col. Reggio. The 203° Comando Militare Regionale was ordered to purchase fuel and parts for vehicle repairs. It was then ordered to give priority to refurbishing the medium tanks and the self-propelled gun.

Two days laters, the Ufficio Operazioni e Addestramento (English: Operations and Training Office) ordered the Ufficio Operazioni e Servizi of the Stato Maggiore dell’Esercito to provide the 1° Deposito Carristi with 1,000 47 mm rounds for the 47 mm L.40 cannons and 100 rounds for the Semovente M43 da 105/25 main gun.

Anyway, on 27th June 1944, 10 days after Lt. Col. Reggio’s report, the High Command ordered the delivery (when operational) of 2 Carri Armati M13/40s with their crews to Sorbolo (near Parma), at the dependencies of the Centro Addestramento Reparti Speciali (English: Special Forces Training Center). 1 Carro Armato M13/40 would be delivered to the Squadrone Autonomo di Cavalleria (English: Autonomous Cavalry Squadron), while the last medium tank (which the Army General Staff called Carro Armato M13/40) would remain at the 1° Deposito Carristi to perfect the training of the crews.

On 31st August 1944, the Army General Staff ordered the disbanding of the 1° Deposito Carristi.
The remaining vehicles were assigned to a newly formed Sezione Carristi (English: Tank Crew Section) of the 27° Deposito Misto Provinciale (English: 27th Provincial Mixed Depot) always in Verona. This unit was equipped, in January 1945 with:

• 10 Carri Armati L3 light tanks
• 3 Carri Armati L6/40 light tanks
• 2 Carri Armati M13/40 medium tanks
• 4 Semoventi L40 da 47/32 SPGs
• 4 Autoblinde AB41 medium reconnaissance armored cars

The Sezione Carristi was composed of 2 officers, 3 NCOs and 4 soldiers. To the 27° Deposito Misto Provinciale was also assigned the workshop of the 1° Deposito Carristi that was particularly effective in reparations and maintenance.
On 1st October 1944 the 1° Deposito Carristi’s workshop and the Deposito C (English: C Depot) of the 27° Deposito Misto Provinciale went to form the Officina Autonoma Carristi (English: Autonomous Tank Crew Workshop) composed of 4 officers, 17 NCOs and 34 soldiers and tank crew members.

Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leoncello’

On 20th September 1944, the Ufficio Operazioni e Servizi of the Stato Maggiore dell’Esercito wrote a report about the spare parts needed for the reparation of tanks. These were significantly less than the ones ordered by Lt. Col. Reggio on 17th June, meaning that the 1° Deposito Carristi had done a great job in the restoration of the tanks, managing to find 4 new guns for the medium tanks and also to repair a serious problem with the electrical system of the self-propelled gun all by himself.

In the same report, the military office suggested to create a Compagnia Autonoma Carri (English: Tank Autonomous Company) with three platoons equipped as follows:

The office also suggested the ranks for this company, with 1 command platoon and 3 tank platoons.

Of these 16 tanks, 8 would be taken from the former 1° Deposito Carristi. Anyway, it is not clear why the office mentioned 5 Carri Armati M13/40s when the 1° Deposito Carristi had only 3 Carri Armati M13/40s and 3 Carri Armati M15/42s. They probably confused the medium tanks models.

On 26th September 1944, Captain Gian Carlo Zuccaro, who had been instructed in previous days by the Army High Command to form the autonomous company, wrote a letter to the 210° Comando Militare Regionale (English: 210th Regional Military Command) of Alessandria, in Piedmont, to deliver its Carro Armato M13/40 for the creation of the Reparto Autonomo Carri (English: Tank Autonomous Unit).

This was done to concentrate all the available tanks under the dependencies of a single unit and not individually with small units scattered throughout the peninsula still in Italo-German hands. From this letter, it is possible to infer that the Compagnia Autonoma Carri’s suggestion was accepted and its theoretical strength was expanded to include multiple tank companies.

Capt. Zuccaro had already been trying for months to create an armored unit for the RSI without the knowledge of the Germans. The cover name he had given the unit, in order to confuse the German authorities, was Battaglione Carri dell’Autodrappello Ministeriale delle Forze Armate (English: Armed Forces’ Ministerial Tank Battalion Unit).

On the same day, Capt. Zuccaro wrote a letter to the 27° Comando Militare Provinciale to deliver the Officina Autonoma (English: Autonomous Workshop) that, at that moment, was being retrained to become a new tank unit. He asked to stop the training and to send all the soldiers and materials to his command.

Whatever Capt. Zuccaro asked in his letters what was done and, after 1st October 1944, the workshop unit was renamed Officina Autonoma Carristi (English: Tank Crew Autonomous Workshop).

The Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leoncello’ (English: Armored Group) was created in Polpenazze del Garda near Brescia on 13th September 1944 by Captain Gian Carlo Zuccaro. It had all the tanks that should have been assigned to the Reparto Autonomo Carri, which was never created. It was never deployed in active service apart from a few skirmishes on 24th and 25th April 1945. The personnel of the unit were 6 officers, 9 NCOs, and 38 crew members and soldiers in January 1945, increased to 8 officers, 22 NCOs, and 58 crew members and soldiers on 31th March 1945. The small number of men in the armored unit is explained for one reason: Commander Zuccaro wanted only volunteers in the ‘Leoncello’, and at the same time, these volunteers had to be staunch fascists, loyal to Mussolini and Italy. In many cases, letters from volunteers were rejected the very day they arrived, if Zuccaro did not think the soldiers were adequately fascists. Due to the presence of only volunteers, many soldiers enlisted had not received tank training, many had already fought in other units such as Carabinieri, i.e. military police that never trained or operated with tanks.

Due to the absence of barracks or military buildings in Polpenazze, the crew members and soldiers of the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leoncello’ were hosted by the inhabitants of the small city in their houses while the NCOs and officers lived in an abandoned mansion. They rented a depot as their military canteen and holded the armored vehicles in barns or parked along the few civilian cars and trucks on the street sides.

The search for new tanks continued and, on 18th March 1945, the unit was equipped with 1 Semovente M43 da 105/25, 1 Carro Armato M15/42, 4 Carri Armati M13/40s, one Carro Armato L6/40, and 7 Carri Armati L3s. This meant that the unit never reached Zuccaro’s planned ranks of 16 armored vehicles but only reached the ranks of 14 armored vehicles, 3 trucks, 2 staff cars, 2 motorcycles, and some Cannoni-Mitragliera Breda da 20/65 Modello 1935s (English: 20 mm L.65 Breda Automatic Cannons Model 1935). This number is also confirmed by Lieutenant Carlo Sessa in a document dated 16th April 1945.

The Carri Armati M13/40s were assigned to the I Squadrone Carri M (English: 1st M Tanks Squadron) under Lieutenant Carlo Sessa command, the 7 Carri Armati L3 and probably also the Carro Armato L6/40 were assigned to the II Squadrone Carri L (English: 2nd L Tanks Squadron) under Second Lieutenant Lucio Furio Orano while the Carro Armato M15/42, the Semovente M43 da 105/25 together with the unarmored vehicles and the automatic cannons were assigned to the Squadrone Comando (English: Command Squadron) under Lieutenant Giacomo Cossu.

A small section of the unit detached in Milan, in the last days of war also deployed 2 Carri Armati P26/40s. It was the only Italian unit that deployed such a heavy tank.

The Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leoncello’, placed in Polpenazze to defend the ministries of the Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana trained for the whole duration of its existence awaiting for its deployment against the Allied forces. In fact, Zuccaro wanted to fight the Allied forces that slowly advanced in Italy and refused many times the deployment of the ‘Leoncello’ in anti-partisan operations. The trainings with mixed vehicles were hold in the hills near Polpenazze and probably in the nearby Lonigo where the Germans had placed the Panzer-Ausbildungs-Abteilung Süd (English: Tank Training Division South) created to train the German soldiers to operate on Italian vehicles.

On 23rd April 1945, the Armored Group ‘Leoncello’ received an order from General Graziani to reach Monza, where many ministries of the Fascist government were placed after the Allied advance along the Italian peninsula.

Capt. Zuccaro organized the unit for the march and, on the morning of 24th April, departed with his own staff car, a Bianchi S6 armed with four heavy machine guns, to plan the road trip to reach Monza. While his car was moving toward Milan with 2 Carri Armati L3s, he was attacked first by a US reconnaissance unit near Sant’Eufemia della Fonte and then by a US plane (a North American P51 or a Lockheed P38) in the city of Rovato. The plane damaged and forced Zuccaro to abandon a light tank but was itself shot down by the anti-aircraft fire from Zuccaro’s car.

Cap. Zuccaro was then forced to continue by foot the march and met an US tank column near Palazzo sull’Oglio. An Italo-American US soldier on a Willy MB Jeep asked him for road information and Zuccaro got into the jeep in which he arrived in Palazzolo from where he then reached Milan alone.

Part of the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leoncello’ left Polpenazze on the night of 24th April to avoid air attacks. It had the new task of reaching Milan (which was being liberated by the partisans in those hours) with 5 medium tanks, the self-propelled gun and 3 Carri Armati L3 light tanks towed by the medium tanks to save fuel. At least 2 Carri Armati L3s, the only Carro Armato L6/40 of the unit and the Officina Autonoma Carristi remained in Polpenazze.

The tragi-comic story of the column started during the march, when one of the medium tank drivers felt sick and lost control of the vehicle, which skidded and ended up in a small canal on the roadside. The unit had to stop and tow it outside the canal, and when the tank was recovered, the march was restarted.

After a while, one of the iron chains connecting a Carro Armato M13/40 with the Carro Armato L3 it was towing broke, and the light tank fell off a small bridge, probably in the same canal as before. The driver (the only soldier inside the tank at the time) survived, jumping outside the tank a few seconds before the crash.

Near Chiari, meanwhile, some Germans were loading some train wagons with stolen stuff of all kinds. The tanks of the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leoncello’ arrived when the Germans were departing. The commander of the Italian column, Lieutenant Carlo Sessa, threatened the Germans that they would open fire if they did not return everything to the civilians. The Germans unloaded everything and left for Germany on the train. Lt. Sessa allowed his men to take some packages of linen and sheets that could have been useful in the following days. The packages were loaded onto the engine decks of the medium tanks. After that, the tanks restarted the march.

Near Rovato, the column was attacked by some Allied planes. It is known that at least oneM13/40 was damaged by the attack and probably also the last two 2 Carri Armati L3 tanks, which were, in fact, abandoned. The crew of the Carro Armato M13/40 tried desperately to repair their tank to join the rest of the ‘Leoncello’. It seems that the other tanks were not damaged because the majority of the bullets fired by the Allied planes hit the linen and sheet packages being carried on the engine decks.

Arriving at Cernusco sul Naviglio, Lt. Sessa called the Milan headquarters from a public phone to receive orders. The Milan command informed him of the situation and suggested that he contact the Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale or CLN (English: National Liberation Committee), the partisan command, to surrender.

Lieutenant Sessa contacted former Alpini Major Lucioni, commander of the Partisan forces in Cernusco and the surrender was made official. All the Fascist soldiers of the column received civilian clothes by the Partisans and were free to return to their homes apart from Sessa who was arrested.

The damaged Carro Armato M13/40 tank that was abandoned was then repaired in a few hours and restarted the march. On board there was also the driver of the Carro Armato L3 light tank that had fallen some hours before in the canal. Near Chari, it was attacked by a US plane; to avoid destruction, the driver hid under some trees at the side of the road and the aircraft gave up the attack.

After a few kilometers the engine broke again and the crew understood that they could not repair it for lack of parts and waited for other Axis units. Nothing happened on 25th April 1945, but at dawn on 26th April, some farmers informed the crew that the war in Italy was over. The crew split up and each soldier went his own way. Some of them reached Polpenazze and informed the soldiers remaining in the city of the situation and together went to the CLN of the city to peacefully surrender and deliver their weapons and tanks to the Partisans.

Gruppo Squadroni Corazzati ‘San Giusto’

The Gruppo Squadroni Corazzati ‘San Giusto’ (English: Armored Squadrons Group) was born in January 1934 as the 1° Gruppo Carri Veloci ‘San Giusto’ (English: 1st Fast Tank Group) in Parma with cavalrymen of the former 1° Gruppo Squadroni a Cavallo (English: 1st Horse-Mounted Squadrons Group) from the 19° Reggimento ‘Cavalleggeri Guide’ (English: 19th Regiment).

It was composed of three gruppi carri veloci (English: fast tank groups), later renamed gruppi carri L (English: light tank groups) and some cavalry squadrons.

In 1941, it was deployed with Carri Armati L3/33s and Carri Armati L3/35s during the Yugoslavian Campaign and remained in the Balkans with anti-partisan tasks until 8th September 1943. When the news of the Armistice arrived at the unit, it had a headquarters, a Squadrone Comando (English: Command Squadron) and Squadroni Carri L (English: Light Tank Squadrons). All were equipped with Carri Armati L3 light tanks.

The majority of the unit disbanded in the days after the Armistice, apart from the 2° Squadrone Carri L (English: 2nd L Tanks Squadron) under the command of Captain Agostino Tonegutti. On 9th September 1943, with its soldiers and 15 light tanks (of which 4 found abandoned during the march), it reached Rijeka from Susak and Crikvenica. Arriving in the city, they helped to stop the Yugoslavian Partisan attack that was besieging the city for days.

Tonegutti’s unit remained in Rijeka until February 1944, when the German command ordered him to reach Gorizia, also near the Yugoslavian border. The Germans provided the unit with Italian soldiers (some from the 1° Deposito Carristi of Verona) and armored vehicles. In Gorizia, they received another 80 soldiers and the 1° Gruppo Carri L ‘San Giusto’ had the following armored vehicles:

• 13 Carri Armati L3/33 and Carri Armati L3/35
• 2 Carri Armati L3/35 Lanciafiamme (Flamethrower)
• 1 Carro Armato L3 Comando
• 2 Carri Armati M13/40
• 3 Carri Armati M14/41
• 1 Semovente M41 da 75/18
• 2 Semoventi M42 da 75/18
• 1 Semovente M42M da 75/34
• 2 Semoventi L40 da 47/32
• 4 Autoblindo AB41
• 3 FIAT 665NM Scudati
• 2 FIAT-SPA S37 Autoprotetti
• 1 Renault ADR Blindato armed with a flamethrower

These were all the armored vehicles the unit had during its operational life. Never were they all operational all at once.
Thanks to the new vehicles, it was renamed Gruppo Squadroni Corazzati ‘San Giusto’ and organized into three squadrons:

The unit had at its disposal a total of 8 officers, 23 NCOs, and 80 soldiers, while in late 1944 the ranks were increased to 100-130 soldiers and 8 officers. In early 1945, due to about 20 losses, the unit remained with 6 officers. It was under the command of the German Befehlshaber in der Operationszone Adriatisches Küstenland (English: Commander in the Adriatic Coast Operational Zone), General Ludwig Kübler, even if it theoretically remained under Italian orders. In fact, it was the only armored cavalry unit of the Repubblica Sociale Italiana. During the reorganization of late 1944 the unit recovered from various sources 4 FIAT-SPA 38R light lorries, 1 FIAT 621P 3-axle medium truck, 2 SPA Dovunque 35 heavy duty trucks, 2 FIAT 666NM heavy duty trucks, 3 SPA mountain light lorries, and some staff cars.

The Germans usually called it the Italienische Panzer-Schwadron “Tonegutti” (English: Italian Armored Squadron) even after its renaming in Gruppo Squadroni Corazzati ‘San Giusto’. The German designation clearly refers to the Italian as a squadron, in fact it was a company-sized (or squadron-sized in Italian cavalry nomenclature) force that maintained the squadrons group designation for its military traditions.
In Gorizia the unit was rarely deployed and its mechanics repaired many vehicles to bring them on marching conditions and maintained 2 Littorine Blindate armored locomotives that were not assigned to the unit.
In April 1944, the Gruppo Squadroni Corazzati ‘San Giusto’ moved to Merano del Friuli, 12 km from Goriza and on the Udine – Monfalcone – Trieste main road abandoning in Gorizia the Renault R35 and the armored truck armed with flamethrower due the lack of spare parts for the first and probably for continuous maintenance needed by the armored truck.

In Merano del Friuli Gruppo Squadroni Corazzati ‘San Giusto’ was first trained reaching fully operable capabilities and then deployed in active service to protect the main road from partisan ambushes, escorting the military supply convoys and in anti-partisan operations near the Gorizia countryside, in Friuli Venezia Giulia’s east part. On some occasions, some units were employed for the protection of isolated guarrisons, bridges, or military depots.

The bloodiest fighting in which the unit took part was the one in Dobraule di Santa Croce, on the road between Gorizia and Aidussina, in the Vipacco Valley, on 31st May 1944.
During the escort of a military convoy, the unit was attacked by partisans and lost 1 Carro Armato M14/41, 2 Autoblinde AB41 medium reconnaissance armored cars, and two FIAT 665NM Scudati, even if the loss of life was more constrained, with only 3 deaths.

On 21st January 1945, a section of medium tanks broke the Yugoslavian encirclement to the Battaglione ‘Fulmine’ of the Xª Divisione MAS (English: 10th MAS Division) in Tarnova. On 17th January, three medium tanks were transferred to the area between Rijeka and Postumia to support the German forces that tried to fill the gaps in the Axis defensive line.

On 28th March 1945 General Archimede Mischi wrote a report on the unit that he had passed in review 6 days before. In his reports he claimed a total of 137 soldiers in the ranks of the unit. A report dated 8th April 1945 has a full list of all the armored vehicles of the unit. Some of these were likely under repair and were not operational at the time.

• 16 Carri Armati L3/33s and Carri Armati L3/35s (probably the same of February 1944)
• 4 Carri Armati M13/40s and Carri Armati M14/41s
• 1 Semovente M41 da 75/18
• 2 Semoventi M42 da 75/18s
• 1 Semovente M42M da 75/34
• 2 Semoventi L40 da 47/32s
• 2 Autoblindo AB41s

In mid April 1945, the situation for the Nazi-Fascist troops in the Balkans was becoming disperate and the Germans called the Italienische Panzer-Schwadron “Tonegutti” for support.

In total, 8 Carri Armati L3s, 3 Carri Armati M (Carri Armati M13/40s and Carri Armati M14/41s) and 2 Semoventi M42 da 75/18s with 4 officers (with Tonegutti himself), 56 NCOs, and soldiers were sent to Ruppa (nowadays Rupa in Croatia), about 50 km Southeast of Triest on railway. Their mission was to protect the city from the 4th Yugoslavian Army. From 18th April to 23th April 1945 the vehicles were deployed in patrol actions and many were attacked by Allied planes but without losses.

On 24th April, while the column was moving from Fontana del Conte (nowadays Knežak in Slovenia) to Massun, North of Ruppa, a Carro Armato L3 tank drove over an anti-tank mine which exploded and killed the crew and another light tank fell in a canal. The explosion attracted the attention of the Yugoslavs, who attacked the column with mortar fire and bursts of small arms fire. Under heavy fire, the remaining tanks were forced to retreat from the area while the semoventi shooted the majority of their 75 mm ammunition trying to slow down the partisans.

On the evening of 25th April 1945, the ‘San Giusto’ unit that had been sent to Ruppa had lost 3 Carri Armati L3 tanks, 2 to mines, and 1 to mortar shells. Another Carro Armato L3 was damaged by machine gun fire, while a medium tank and a self-propelled gun were damaged by air attacks.

Given the desperate situation and the impossibility of slowing down the Yugoslav partisans, the unit sent to Ruppa departed on 27th April 1945 first to Trieste and then to Mariano del Friuli, where the rest of the unit was headquartered.

They arrived in the city only on 28th April morning, discovering that the rest of the unit had peacefully surrendered to the partisans the day before and that the partisans had used some Carri Armati L3 tanks and an Autoblinda AB41 (the only operational vehicles that had remained in the barracks) against the German forces in Cividale del Friuli.

The still-equipped forces arrived from Ruppa then decided to disband, abandoning their tanks on the road on the same day.

Raggruppamento Anti Partigiani

The Raggruppamento Anti Partigiani or RAP (English: Anti Partisan Group) was created in August 1944 as an anti-partisan unit. Its main task was to counter partisan actions and to patrol the areas where the partisans concentrated.

It was created in Brescia, where it received 2 Carri Armati M13/40s. These were the two tanks of the 1° Deposito Carristi destined for the Centro Addestramento Reparti Speciali on 27th June 1944. 8 of the 13 tank crew officers of the RAP were from the already disbanded 1° Deposito Carristi of Verona.

After the organization of the unit, it left Brescia and was deployed in Turin, where it was headquartered in many barracks of the city.
In November 1944 the Raggruppamento Anti Partigiani was composed of:

The Reparto Autonomo di Cavalleria (English: Cavalry Autonomous Department) was created in Bergamo and was composed of soldiers and crew members of various ENR units. The unit slowly phagocytes all the units of the Gruppo Esplorante (English: Exploring Group), where the armored vehicles were deployed. It was transferred in Turin in November 1944 and was headquartered in the Scuola di Applicazione (English: Training School) in Via Arsenale.

The 1a Compagnia Carri M had in its ranks 1 Carro Armato M13/40 medium tank received by the 1° Deposito Carristi. The 2a Compagnia Carri L was equipped with 10 Carri Armati Leggeri L3.

The commander of the 1a Compagnia Carri M was Lieutenant Ascanio Caradonna. Of the about 20 officers of the unit, 12 were trained in an unknown German Panzertruppenschule (English: Armored Troops School) and, for that reason, were praized in December 1944 by Oberleutnant (English: Senior Lieutenant) Glaser for their training.

Between November 1944 and January 1945 the 1a Compagnia Carri M was disbanded for the lack of medium tanks and the 2a Compagnia Carri L was renamed 1a Compagnia Carri L.
In December 1944 the RAP wrote to the German Aufstellungsstab Süd (English: Positioning Staff South) asking for the delivery of Italian armored vehicles.
After an inspection from Oberleutnant Glaser that after praized the crew members positively reviewed the Raggruppamento Anti Partigiani, the Aufstellungsstab Süd delivered to the Italian unit some Italian armored vehicles.
The Germans put at the disposal of the unit some tanks abandoned at the Deposito di Caselle (English: Caselle’s Depot) in Caselle, near Turin.
The Germans would have had to spend too much time repairing them, so they donated them to the RAP, who could try to repair some and use the others for parts. The tanks that were made available by the Germans for the unit were:

• 7 Carri Armati L3
• 1 Carro Armato M13/40
• 2 Semoventi L40 da 47/32
• 1 Autoblindo AB41
• 2 Semoventi da 75/18 (exact model unknown)

All the vehicles were in bad conditions and necessitated to be heavily overhauled to return to combat valuable status.

On 10th January the Raggruppamento Anti Partigiani had 6 serviceable Carri Armati L3 and 8 vehicles.

On 30th January 1945, the armored company was composed of 21 officers, 2 NCOs, 24 soldiers, and 5 female auxiliaries. On 5th April 1945, there were 16 officers, 5 NCOs, 27 soldiers, and 1 female auxiliary. The other soldiers were missing in action or had deserted.

Some of the vehicles delivered by the Germans were repaired and pressed into service with the Raggruppamento Anti Partigiani. On 25th February 1945, in a report from the National Republican Army General Staff, the following vehicles were listed as in service with the RAP:

• 1 Autoblindo AB41
• 17 Carri Armati L3 (of which 7 under repair)
• 1 Carro Armato L6/40
• 2 Carri Armati M13/40

However, it seems that the Carro Armato L6/40 would have been a Semovente L40 da 47/32 that was wrongly identified, as some photographic sources reveal.

On the same document, the National Republican Army General Staff ordered the Raggruppamento Anti Partigiani to deliver all its medium tanks and the Autoblindo AB41 to the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’, while the ‘Leonessa’ had to deliver all its light tanks to the RAP.

This was done to concentrate all the medium tanks and self-propelled guns in a single bigger unit able to fight against Allied forces, while the Raggruppamento Anti Partigiani was created to fight the badly equipped partisans which were only equipped with light and obsolete vehicles.

It seems that the delivery was started before the Great Partisan Uprising of late April 1945. In fact, on 6th March 1945, the partisans captured a Lancia Lince scout car during an ambush near Cisterna d’Asti, a small city near Turin. This small scout car was deployed by the Raggruppamento Anti Partigiani even if it was formerly a ‘Leonessa’ vehicle.

Anyway, the transfer was never finished. In fact, on 23rd March 1945, the AB41 armored car was still in the ranks of the RAP. On 28th April 1945, when the Raggruppamento Anti Partigiani left Turin, it abandoned many of its tanks in its barracks, of which at least one was a Carro Armato M13/40.

However, during an unknown period, in order to allow the Raggruppamento Anti Partigiani crews to receive adequate training, the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ assigned some of its tank crew officers to the RAP. One of these officers was put in charge of the Carro Armato M13/40 given his extensive previous experience. The only serviceable Carro Armato M13/40’s story is unknown, as is its fate.

Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana

Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’

The Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ was the biggest and best equipped unit of the entire Repubblica Sociale Italiana.

It was created from officers and soldiers (the majority of them tank crew members) from the disbanded 1ª Divisione Corazzata Legionaria ‘M’. After the Armistice, on 21st September 1943, the Division created the new armored group in the Caserma Mussolini of Rome. They had already been disarmed by the German 2. Fallschirmjäger-Division ‘Ramke’ (English: 2nd Paratrooper Division) on 12th or 13th September in Tivoli, near Rome.

The soldiers put back the Fascist insignia on the lapel of the uniform (removed after the arrest of Mussolini on 25th July 1943) and tried to find new military equipment. They found 2 Carri Armati M13/40 and some lorries abandoned after 10th September in the Forte Tiburtino fortress, the headquarters of the former 4º Reggimento Fanteria Carrista (English: 4th Tank Crew Infantry Regiment). The 2 tanks were from the 3° Reggimento Fanteria Carrista (English: 3rd Tank Crew Infantry Regiment) that arrived in Rome shortly before the armistice to equip the IX Battaglione Carri M under creation.

On 17th September 1943, Lieutenant General Renzo Montagna, the former commander of the Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale or MVSN (English: Voluntary Militia for National Security) was put in charge. The former 1ª Divisione Corazzata Legionaria ‘M’ was part of the MVSN before the Armistice, so returned under its control.

Lt. Gen. Montagna mentioned in a letter that the units under his control had recovered a total of about 40 medium tanks and dozens of other vehicles in the streets of Rome. This not seems an exaggerated number, in fact before the armistice, in Summer 1943 the 4º Reggimento Fanteria Carrista alone had at its disposal 31 tanks (probably all Carri Armati M), 11 semoventi and 20 camionette of which the majority deployed during the disparate defense of Rome.

The 2 medium tanks were immediately reused after an order of Lt. Gen. Montagna. They were to guard the Piazza Colonna, were the Ente Italiano per le Audizioni Radiofoniche or EIAR (English: Italian Body for Radio Broadcasting) and the Partito Fascista Repubblicano or PFR (English: Republican Fascist Party) were headquartered in Palazzo Wedekind.

On 29th September, the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ was transferred to Montichiari, near Brescia, with the few armored vehicles that it had recovered in Rome. The command of the former 1ª Divisione Corazzata Legionaria ‘M’ remained in Rome until November 1943 and then joined a small group of officers who prepared the new headquarters in Rovato, near Brescia.

The unit started to reorganize and a lot of new volunteers joined the unit. Among these were also 5 officers that were part of the 132ª Divisione Corazzata ‘Ariete’ (English: 132nd Armored Division) before the Armistice, two of them already decorated with medals for bravery.

The Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ was able to create 3 companies. However, the armored ones were almost immediately disbanded due to the scarcity of armored vehicles in the unit’s ranks.

On 8th December 1943, due to the few tanks present in the unit’s ranks, the Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale High Command planned to transform the unit into a public order company. After a fierce resistance of the officers to maintain the status of armored unit, General Renato Ricci, the new commander of the MVSN, amazed by the tenacity of the officers of the ‘Leonessa’ ,granted the unit two months to reorganize and find armored vehicles to use.

The officer in command of the armored group, Lieutenant Colonel Priamo Switch, ordered some officers to recover as many armored vehicles as possible from anywhere on the RSI territories.

The most successful officers were Tenant Giovanni Ferraris and Tenant Loffredo Loffredi who, in less than two months, found dozens of tanks, armored cars, trucks and other equipment in Bologna, Brescia, Milano, Siena, Torino, Vercelli and Verona.

Some tanks were found in the 32° Reggimento Fanteria Carrista (English: 32th Tank Crew Infantry Regiment) barracks and depots in Verona, thanks to the suggestions of former 32° Reggimento Fanteria Carrista members that joined the unit. Spare parts were taken from the depots of the Breda factory in Turin (which produced only spare parts), as Tenant Ferraris had some friends among the factory managers.

Everything that was found was sent to Montichiari, where the workshop of the unit commanded by Lieutenant Soncini and Lieutenant Dante, supported by civilians and workers from a nearby factory of the Officine Meccaniche or OM (English: Mechanic Workshops), repaired them. They were able to repair dozens of vehicles: motorbikes, staff cars, trucks, armored cars and tanks, allowing the unit to remain an armored group.

On 9th February 1944, Gen. Ricci arrived in Brescia to participate in the ceremony for the official Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ loyalty oath. After the ceremony, all the running condition vehicles of the unit paraded through the streets of Brescia. At least one was a Carro Armato M13/40 of the 1st series.

On 1st March 1944, the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ moved to Turin with the 1ª Compagnia Arditi Autocarrata (English: 1st Motorized Arditi Company), the 2ª Compagnia Guastatori (English: 2nd Saboteurs Company) and the 3ª Compagnia (English: 3rd Company). The moving was complete on 5th March and the group was headquartered in three different Turin barracks: the Caserma Alessandro La Marmora in Via Asti, the Caserma Vittorio Dabormida in Corso Stupinigi, Caserma Luigi Riva of Via Cernaia the and Caserma Podgora in Piazza Carlo Emanuele.

The 1ª Compagnia Arditi Autocarrata was deployed in the Caserma Luigi Riva, headquarter of the 1ª Brigata Nera ‘Ather Capelli’, while the 2ª Compagnia Guastatori was deployed in the Caserma Podgora.

The majority of the armored vehicles of the unit (unfortunately, there is no data to say how many there were) were deployed with the 2ª Compagnia Guastatori, even if it seems that the tanks were not assigned to the companies.

From Second World War-era documents about the operations of ‘Leonessa’, it is known that the armored vehicles were not assigned to a particular company but that they were essentially assigned to a company before the start of a mission. Obviously, the more dangerous the mission, the more armored vehicles were assigned to the company.

Together with the tanks, the crews were also assigned at the mission’s start. In fact, the armored group’s command decided to maintain the same soldiers for each tank as long as possible in order to create cohesion between the various members of the crew. More importantly, in this way, the driver knew all the characteristics of his vehicle and knew how best to repair it.

A group of veterans of the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ wrote a list of all the vehicles of the armored group in the book Gruppo Corazzato Leonessa 1943–1945 – RSI. They did not specify if this is the list of vehicles in service at a certain data of the armored group’s life or if this is the full list of vehicles that the armored group had in service during its 20-month long service.

• 35 Carri Armati M (M13/40, M14/41, M15/42, and at least 2 M42 command tanks)
• 5 Semoventi L40 da 47/32s
• 1 Carro Armato L6/40
• 16 Carri Armati L3s
• 18 Autoblinde AB41s and Autoblinde AB43s
• 1 Dingo Scout Car (actually a Lancia Lince scout car, the Italian copy of the Dingo)
• 10 Autoblinde Tipo ‘Zerbino’ (improvised vehicles, unknown models)
• 3 Autoprotette Pesanti (improvised vehicles, unknown models)
• 4 Autoprotette Leggere (improvised vehicles, unknown models)
• 8 Autoblindo S40 and S26 (improvised vehicles, unknown models)

• 60 Lancia 3Ro heavy duty trucks
• 5 SPA Dovunque 41 heavy duty trucks
• 12 FIAT 634N heavy duty trucks
• 13 FIAT 666 heavy duty trucks
• 25 FIAT 626 medium trucks
• 10 OM Taurus medium trucks
• 4 Bianchi Miles medium trucks
• 9 FIAT-SPA 38R light trucks
• 8 FIAT-SPA TL37 light prime movers
• 48 Staff and civilian cars
• 60 Motorcycles
• 8 Mobile kitchens
• 2 Mobile workshops

• 4 Cannoni da 75/27 Modello 1911s

The only original list of vehicles in service with the armored group was written on 25th February 1945 in a document of the National Republican Army General Staff. It states that the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ had in its ranks:

• 10 Carri Armati M15/42s
• 10 Carri Armati M13/40s and Carri Armati M14/41s
• Unknown number of Carri Armati M13/40s and Carri Armati M14/41s under repair
• 12 Autoblinde
• 30 Motorcycles

This is surely an incomplete list that does not mention all the trucks in service with the armored group, but allows to understand the number of losses that the partisans inflicted on the Fascist forces.

The first anti-partisan action of the unit was on 21st March 1944, when it participated with a medium tank and an Autoblindo AB41 armored car that were temporarily assigned to the Füsilier-Bataillon 29 “Debica” (English: 29th Rifle Battalion) of the 29. Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS “Italia” (English: 29th Grenadier Division of the SS) with about 500 soldiers under German SS General Peter Hansen.

The armored vehicles were deployed in the Lucerna Valley, where Italian communist partisans of the IV Brigata ‘Pisacane’ (English: 4th Brigade) were active. During a patrol, the vehicles were divided from the rest of the SS soldiers due to a landslide caused by the explosion of a partisan mine. The partisans then started to throw hand grenades and Molotov cocktails on the medium tank and the Autoblindo AB41. The Autoblindo AB41, hit by a hand grenade, fell off the road into a nearby river, killing the three crew members inside, while another 4 soldiers and an NCO were captured.

To celebrate its service in the Piedmontese capital city, on 23rd May 1944, a parade was organized by the High Command of Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ and the city’s mayor.

The parade counted 9 Carri Armati L3s, 1 Carro Armato L6/40, 2 Autoblinde AB41s, 2 Carrozzerie Speciali su SPA-Viberti AS43s, 2 Carri Armati M13/40s, another medium tank and some trucks. It departed from the Porta Nuova train station, passed through Piazza Carlo Felice, Via Roma and then arrived in Piazza Castello, Turin’s main square.

From Piazza Castello, the armored vehicles and trucks full of militia men turned back to Porta Nuova, from which the column disbanded and the troops returned to their barracks.

On 28th May, just returned from an anti-partisan operation in which 33 partisans and 3 former prisoners of war escaped from a military camp were captured, the ‘Leonessa’ was deployed in Operation Hamburg that took place in Biella, Caluso Cavaglia, Chatillon, Dondena, Gressoney, Rivara, and Ronco.

In total, two tanks and two armored cars (models unknown) and a company-strength unit of the ‘Leonessa’ were deployed. Together with the armored group soldiers were other units: the GNR from Vercelli, from other Turin units, a company of the GNR border police, a unit from the Legione Autonoma Mobile ‘Ettore Muti’ (English: Mobile Autonomous Legion) and some German soldiers.

In June 1944, the unit was reorganized with the 1ª Compagnia Carri (English: 1st Tank Company), the 2ª Compagnia Autoblindo (English: 2nd Armored Car Company) and the 3ª Compagnia Arditi (English: 3rd Arditi Company).

Between 26th June and 8th July 1944, the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ was deployed in an anti-partisan operation in Avigliana, 22 km from Turin. During the operation, 3 Carri Armati M13/40s were deployed, of which one was deployed in the city after the operation and remained in the city probably as a deterrent against other partisan attacks. Nothing is known about its service in Avigliana or how long the garrison of Avigliana remained operational.

After the same Val di Susa anti-partisan operation, at least 1 Carro Armato M13/40 was deployed to protect the Fixed Aircraft Spotting Post of Lanzo. This tank was deployed after a partisan operation, when the garrison of the 2ª Compagnia Ordine Pubblico (English: 2nd Public Order Company) commanded by Captain Giuseppe Bertoni was attacked by partisan forces. As reported by Captain Bertoni in his report, the armored vehicles of the ‘Leonessa’ left the barracks, attacking the partisans and forcing them to retreat.

The Carro Armato M13/40 medium tank was certainly engaged in combat at least once against the partisans. The garrison was disbanded at the end of 1944.

On 25th July 1944, Gen. Ricci organized a big parade in Milan to celebrate the first anniversary of the first fall of Fascism in Italy. A total of 5,000 soldiers and 275 female auxiliaries took part in the parade, including Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ armored vehicles.

On 25th September 1944, a Carro Armato M15/42, a Carro Armato M13/40, 2 Carri Armati L6/40s (probably a light tank and an SPG), an Autoprotetta and a platoon of the 1ª Compagnia of the ‘Leonessa’ were deployed in Giaveno, in Val di Susa, under the command of Major Antonio Braguti.

During the mission, some soldiers from the Raggruppamento Anti Partigiani and from the 1ª Brigata Nera ‘Ather Capelli’ were also present. Together with the soldiers and vehicles of the armored group, they patrolled the villages of Fratta, Giaveno, and Maddalena di Val Sangone.

On 15th January 1945, 1 Carro Armato M13/40 was sent to support a convoy of German vehicles in Villanova D’Asti, which was hit by a partisan attack. The tank returned to its barracks in Turin the same night.

On 21th February 1945, 2 Carri Armati M13/40s, 2 armored cars and 2 autoprotette of the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ were deployed in an anti-guerrilla operation between Villanova D’Asti and Mononio. Together with these armored vehicles, the XXIX Battaglione ‘M’ (English: 29th ‘M’ Battalion), the 1ª Compagnia Ordine Pubblico (English: 1st Public Order Company) of Turin and some soldiers from the Xª Divisione MAS participated. Only a single partisan was killed during the operation.

The Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ was deployed after April 1944 to protect the Roberto Incerti Villar or RIV ball bearing factory in San Raffaele Cimena, near Chivasso. Some machinery tools were transferred from Turin to San Raffaele to continue the production. In fact, in February 1944, the RIV plant at Via Nizza 148 in Turin was badly damaged by Allied bombardments. The San Raffaele Cimena area was really quiet until 6th February 1945, when about 40 partisans attacked 21 ‘Leonessa’ soldiers, killing 2 and wounding 3 of them.

For this reason, after 3rd March 1945, a Carro Armato M13/40 was deployed by the armored group’s garrison in the village. In total, on 3rd March, the garrison had at its disposal 6 officers, 88 NCOs and militia men, 2 Carri Armati L3 light tanks, and 1 Carro Armato M13/40.

On 16th March 1945, the ranks of the garrison were reinforced with another Carro Armato M13/40 tank, but on the 29th, the ranks of the garrison were modified with 3 M15/42 medium tanks, 3 L3 light tanks, 5 officers, 50 NCOs and militia men. The garrison was probably disbanded and the soldiers returned to Turin between 15th and 20th April 1945.

On 23th March 1945, the unit took part in its last parade, on the occasion of the anniversary of the foundation of the Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale in Turin. Its tanks now paraded in Via Po, arriving in Piazza Vittorio Veneto, where Alessandro Pavolini, secretary of the Partito Fascista Repubblicano, took part at the ceremony.

At 1630 hrs. on 17th April 1945, Lt. Col. Swich had a small briefing with the officers of the unit present in Turin to inform them that the CNL had proclaimed a worker’s strike on 18th April. The unit patrolled the city roads all the night and day after but without partisan attacks. On this occasion, almost all the vehicles were deployed.

On 24th April 1945, General Adami Rossi, Commander of the 206° Comando Provinciale Regionale, ordered the creation of 22 checkpoints in the Turin countryside to prevent partisan attacks. All the roadblocks were patrolled by militia men from the 1ª Brigata Nera ‘Ather Capelli’.

On 25th April, the day of the Great Partisan Insurrection, the 1ª and 2ª Compagnia of the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’, 2 companies of the Raggruppamento Anti Partigiani, a platoon of the Xª Divisione MAS, the XXIX Battaglione ‘M’, a Battaglione Ordine Pubblico of the GNR of Turin and the 1ª Brigata Nera ‘Ather Capelli’ were present in Turin.

The ‘Leonessa’ headquarter was in the Via Asti Barracks, together with the Battaglione Ordine Pubblico. The 1ª Compagnia, under the command of Lieutenant Tommaso Stabile, was in the Caserma Luigi Riva with a company of the Black Brigade, while the 2ª Compagnia, under the command of Lieutenant Nicola Sanfelice, was in the Caserma Podgora together with the RAP companies.

Lt. Col. Swich had ordered 2 Carri Armati M13/40s to Piazza Castello with an armored car and about 15 militiamen to defend the prefecture of the city in that square. The Carro Armato M14/41 commanded by Brigadier Leonardo Mazzoleni was placed in Piazza Gran Madre di Dio to protect the bridge over the Po river. Two companies of the Battaglione Ordine Pubblico, the Raggruppamento Anti Partigiani companies and the majority of the ‘Leonessa’ soldiers were deployed to reinforce the roadblocks and checkpoints and to patrol the city roads.

On 25th April 1945, the day was calm due to the fact that, in Turin, the CLN had delayed the attack by one day, to the 26th April. The Fascist soldiers tended to their guns and the engines of their tanks.

On 26th April, the partisans started their attack, occupying Porta Nuova, Dora, and Stura train stations, 8 of the 10 FIAT plants in the city (FIAT Lingotto and FIAT Mirafiori remained in Fascist hands), Lancia Veicoli Industriali, the RIV plant, the city hall and the Gazzetta del Popolo newspaper headquarter.

The EIAR headquarter was also attacked by the partisans but the soldiers and vehicles of the ‘Leonessa’ deployed near the radio broadcasting building, with a medium tank and two armored cars, forced the partisans to retreat.

Some counter attacks were undertaken and the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ was able to retake control of the majority of the production plants and train stations occupied by the partisan on the same day.

In the city hall, before being arrested by the partisans, the Podestà (English: Major) Michele Fassio called for reinforcements. Immediately, a medium tank and an armored car commanded by Second Lieutenant Stornelli of the 1ª Compagnia, together with some soldiers under the command of Captain Milanaccio, were deployed from the Caserma Luigi Riva to reoccupy the city hall.

The small unit reached the city hall where the partisans, hearing the engine noises, barricaded themselves inside the building. The door of the city hall was destroyed by the tank’s main gun, the major freed and the vehicles and men of the 1ª Compagnia returned to the Via Asti barracks.

In the afternoon, the Lamarmora barracks was surrounded but the partisans could not force the Fascists to retreat due to the heavy armament of the defenders. Lieutenant Marchegiani, commander of a medium tank, opened fire against the windows of a building near Porta Nuova train station, while partisans opened fire against a hotel from where civilian German inhabitants were rescued. After several machine gun bursts, the partisans retreated, abandoning the building.

The Caserma Luigi Riva was attacked around 14:00 of 26th April by partisans and auxiliary police (who joined the partisans that morning) from the Corso Vinzaglio police barracks, near the Porta Susa train station. The partisans also fired mortar shells against the building, but their lack of training did not permit them to deal heavy damage.

According to the testimony of Lt. Tommaso Stabile, at 18:00, 4 medium tanks, 3 armored cars, a platoon from the ‘Leonessa’ and a platoon from the ‘Ather Capelli’ left from the Caserma Luigi Riva. This group attacked the partisans and auxiliary police officers, who tried to resist. After a few hours, the Fascist armored cars destroyed the partisan 20 mm automatic cannons and the 47 mm guns of the tanks destroyed the barrack’s doors, allowing the Fascist troops to enter.

After the loss of 10 partisans and police officers, the rebels disbanded, retreating through the Pietro Micca tunnel which had been dug in 1706 by the Piedmontese Army to destroy French forces that had surrounded the city. One of the four tanks advanced until Porta Susa, 600 meters from the Caserma Luigi Riva’s entrance.

On 27th April 1945, almost all the plants and other targets occupied by the partisans the previous day were recaptured by Fascist forces. During the morning, 5 medium tanks and 2 armored cars were deployed to patrol the roads in the perimeter: Corso Vinzaglio, Via Cernaia, Piazza Castello, and Porta Susa train station.

At 15:00 on 27th April 1945, there was a briefing between all the Fascist commanders in Turin. They planned to activate the Esigenza Z2B Improvviso (English: Requirement Z2B Sudden) secret plan. This was a planned retreat of all Fascist forces to the Valtellina Valley, where they would wait for the Allied forces to surrender to them, avoiding falling into partisan hands.

The units were ordered to start moving toward Piazza Castello, where the Fascist column would depart from during the night.

All the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ militia men reached Turin’s main square, where Lt. Col. Swich ordered the tanks to position themselves in front and rear to defend the column in case of attacks.

At 0128 hrs. on 28th April 1945, about 5,000 Fascists, the few remaining Germans and some civilians (soldier’s families or persons who had collaborated with the Fascists) left the city towards Lombardia. The tanks in the front of the column opened a break in a barricade near the Dora train station and then reached the road to Chivasso.

On the dawn of 28th April 1945, the column left the highway to avoid Allied air attacks and continued the march on small roads, without the few German soldiers that had joined the column that night. The Germans tried to reach Germany or other foreign units continuing to march in the Northern direction.

After stopping their march for the night near Livorno Ferraris, the Fascist forces of the column were informed of Benito Mussolini’s execution. The officers then decided that it was useless to reach Valtellina and preferred to deploy the over 5,000 soldiers under their command in the village of Strambino Romano, where they created a headquarters and waited until 5th May 1945, when the Allied troops arrived in the area. At that point, the Fascist troops in Strambino Romano numbered between 15,000 and 20,000. All surrendered without fighting to the Allied troops.

Carro Armato M13/40 assigned to the II Battaglione Ciclisti d’Assalto ‘Venezia Giulia’

The first 2 tanks assigned to the II Battaglione Ciclisti d’Assalto ‘Venezia Giulia’ (English: 2nd Cyclist Assault Battalion) operating in Val d’Ossola area were 2 Carri Armati M13/40s that were temporary assigned to the Fascist unit from the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ with their crews under command of Adjutant Ferdinando Baradello. They were headquartered in Omegna but it seems that they were not used in early September 1944.

The Repubblica dell’Ossola (English: Ossola Republic) was a partisan republic that arose in northern Italy on 10th September 1944. This was a small (1,600 km²) territory freed by partisan troops.

In early October 1944, the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ temporarily assigned a total of 3 medium tanks and 10 armored cars more and their crew members to some units deployed in the area of Repubblica dell’Ossola to launch a fierce attack on the partisans, forcing them to disband.

At least 2 more tanks were assigned to the II Battaglione Ciclisti d’Assalto ‘Venezia Giulia’ of the Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana, one Carro Armato M13/40 and one Carro Armato M14/41 commanded by Lieutenant Oberdan Marchegiani. They were deployed to the south of the republic. It had the task of destroying the partisan first line in Ornavasso and then reaching Domodossola as soon as possible, the capital city of the self proclaimed republic.

The attack on the Repubblica dell’Ossola was codenamed Operazione Avanti (English: Operation Ahead). The operation was planned by Monza High Command and the command was assigned to German Colonel Ludwig Buch.

Anyway, the II Battaglione Ciclisti d’Assalto ‘Venezia Giulia’ was supported by the Füsilier-Bataillon 29 “Debica” and some other small units, forming Kampfgruppe ‘Noveck’. It started the attack on the partisan republic on 10th October 1944. The book Il Battaglione SS ‘Debica’ written by Leonardo Sandri claims that the SS soldiers arrived at Gravellona Toce on 10th October and that the anti-partisan actions started on 11th October, a day after.

The same book claims that, during the operation, apart from the II Battaglione Ciclisti d’Assalto ‘Venezia Giulia’ and the Füsilier-Bataillon 29 ‘Debica’, a company of the Scuola Allievi Ufficiali (English: Officer Rookies School) of the GNR of Varese and a company of the Battaglione Paracadutisti ‘Mazzarini’ (English: Paratrooper Battalion) were also deployed for a total of about 3,500 soldiers. The Italian troops were supported by a 8.8 cm FlaK gun, two 75 mm mountain howitzers, two 75 mm anti-tank guns, two 47 mm anti-tank guns, a German armored train and 2 Carri Armati M13/40s. This confirms the presence of 2 Carri Armati M13/40s even if they had to be at least 5. Probably the book Il Battaglione SS ‘Debica’ was listing only the forces that supported the ‘Debica’ and not all the Axis forces deployed to attack the Partisan’s republic. The last tank detached to the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ was a Carro Armato M15/42 that was assigned together with a Carro Armato M13/40 and the Carro Armato M14/41 to the Il Battaglione SS ‘Debica’ after the Operazione Avanti.

On the first day, the II Battaglione Ciclisti d’Assalto ‘Venezia Giulia’ tried to break up the defensive line of the Divisione Partigiana ‘Valtoce’ (English: Partisan Division) on the right side of the Toce river, trying to enter in the city of Ornavasso. The Füsilier-Bataillon 29 ‘Debica’, on the left side of the river, tried to break the line of the Divisione Partigiana ‘Val d’Ossola’, trying to capture Mergozzo.

The 2 medium tanks were supporting the 1ª Compagnia, 3ª Compagnia and 4ª Compagnia of the II Battaglione Ciclisti d’Assalto ‘Venezia Giulia’ on the valley floor, while the 2ª Compagnia tried to circumvent the partisan defensive line, climbing the narrow streets of Monte Massone, covered by woods.

Luckily for the partisans, their reinforcements arrived quickly and they could start a counter attack before the 2ª Compagnia arrived in position. When the partisans attacked, the 2 tanks left the road to avoid being easily detected, but got stuck, probably in a mud field. The Fascist forces were forced to retreat with the tanks. On that day, the partisans resisted the attack.

At dawn of the next day, 2 tanks, supported by infantry, having learnt the ground, reached the partisan positions near Ornavasso, forcing the partisans to leave them.

The Fascist forces then advanced more into the partisan republic territory, but were blocked about 2 km north from Ornavasso, where the partisans had dug anti-tank ditches and entrenched themselves in a First World War-era bunker of the Liena Cadorna (English: The Cadorna Line). The Fascist forces were forced to stop their advance, fighting against the partisans barricaded in the fortress until 12th October 1944.

The night between 12th and 13th October, two companies of the II Battaglione Ciclisti d’Assalto ‘Venezia Giulia’ encircled the partisan forces from Monte Massone and deployed unnoticed on the right side of the partisan line, waiting to ambush the partisan reinforcements.

On the morning of 13th October, the remaining two companies of the II Battaglione Ciclisti d’Assalto ‘Venezia Giulia’ along with the medium tanks attacked the partisan positions in the Linea Cadorna again. When the soldiers of the Divisione Partigiana ‘Valtoce’ from the rearguard arrived in the area, the two companies hidden on the mountain ambushed them, causing many losses.

The partisans were forced to abandon the battle and retreated, pursued by Fascist forces and tried to reach Switzerland, a neutral territory, where they could have been saved. On 14th October afternoon, the reconnaissance squads of the Fascist forces arrived at Domodossola, the capital city of the partisan republic.

On 16th October 1944, the II Battaglione Ciclisti d’Assalto ‘Venezia Giulia’ and the Carro Armato M13/40 commanded by Lt. Marchegiani dispersed the last weak partisan defense in Varzo. After liberating the city, two companies of the battalion and the tank continued the advance, trying to arrive as soon as possible to the Swiss border and block the retreat of the last partisans in the area.

An interesting story about that day was mentioned by the commander of the II Battaglione Ciclisti d’Assalto ‘Venezia Giulia’, Lieutenant Ajmone Finestra, in his book Dal Fronte Jugoslavo alla Val d’Ossola. In it, he mentions that the Carro Armato M13/40 challenged the Swiss border guards when it arrived at the Swiss border, rolling towards the roadblock at high speed. The Swiss border guards tried to place an anti-tank gun in position as a deterrent, but before the gun was ready, the tank arrived near the borderline, turned around and went back.

After the end of the operations, one of the 2 Carri Armati M13/40s detached to the II Battaglione Ciclisti d’Assalto ‘Venezia Giulia’ in August returned back to Turin with Lt. Marchegiani. A single Carro Armato M13/40 was put under command of 1° Aiutante (English: Adjutant of 1st Class) Ferdinando Baradello, with driver Adjutant Stevani, while the other two crew members were Legionnaires Bianchi and Ciardi. It remained in Omegna under the command of the 2ª Compagnia of the II Battaglione Ciclisti d’Assalto ‘Venezia Giulia’. The other 3 tanks as seen before followed the Il Battaglione SS ‘Debica’.

In January 1945, thanks to the Carro Armato M13/40, the Fascist forces reached the goal of capturing an entire batch of Allied equipment launched from a cargo plane in the Val d’Ossola for the partisans.

On 14th and 15th March, the 2ª Compagnia of the II Battaglione Ciclisti d’Assalto ‘Venezia Giulia’ was attacked at Omegna. The troops, supported by the Carro Armato M13/40 of 1° Aiutante Ferdinando Boradello, broke through the encirclement and tried to reach Quarna, where a mixed garrison composed of Battaglione ‘Castagnacci’ of the Xª Divisione MAS and a black brigade were encircled. When the tank arrived, the Fascist troops had already surrendered.

On 17th March 1945, the car of Lieutenant Ajmone Finestra was ambushed by partisans while traveling with two soldiers from Omegna to Baveno. Miraculously escaping from death, the three fascist soldiers barricaded themselves behind the car, refusing to surrender. Meanwhile, the rifle shots attracted the attention of the fascist soldiers in Omegna, who sent the tank on the road.

Rescuing the officer and the two soldiers, the tank was again attacked by partisans near Omegna. This was an unsuccessful attack that cost the partisans 5 men.

On 22nd March 1945, a tank and an armored car took part in an anti-partisan operation in Varallo Sesia, while the Carro Armato M13/40 of Adjutant of 1st Class Boradello was deployed with the same task in Gravellona Toce area.

During the same month, 1° Aiutante Ferdinando Boradello was transferred and Adjutant Stevani took his place as tank commander. From March to late April 1945, the tank was deployed to support the units of the ‘Venezia Giulia’ battalion, black brigades, militia men and German forces in the cities of Cireggio, Lucerna, Luzzogno and Omegna. Their opponents were the 2ª Divisione ‘Garibaldi’ communist partisans and the autonomous of Divisione ‘Beltrami’.

The tank was again deployed in Intra, near Omegna, against the partisans on 21st April 1945. During the night between 23rd and 24th April 1945, the 2ª Compagnia of the II Battaglione Ciclisti d’Assalto ‘Venezia Giulia’ received the order to withdraw from Omegna to Baveno. On the morning of 24th April, the company left the city in column formation, with the tank at the rear. The partisans from the valley’s sides opened fire, blocking the Fascist company for some hours.

In the end, the column succeeded retreating to Gravellona Toce, where it met the rest of the II Battaglione Ciclisti d’Assalto ‘Venezia Giulia’ and other Italian and German units arriving from Domodossola. Together, they reached Baveno; the column was named ‘Stamm’ Column for the name of the German commander of the SS-Polizei-Regiment 20.

On 25th April 1945, there were 450 soldiers of the II Battaglione Ciclisti d’Assalto ‘Venezia Giulia’, 150 of the XXIX Brigata Nera ‘Ettore Muti’, plus some more Italian and German soldiers. In total, there was the Carro Armato M13/40 of Adjutant Stevani, two German armored cars and 700 soldiers ready to move toward Stresa under command of Major Fagioli and German Captain Stamm.

The column moved on the road to Belgiate, breaking all the Partisan roadblocks and entering Stresa and then Belgiate. During the late afternoon of 25th April, the column reached Meina, while the partisans in the area reached Arona to block the column.

During the night, the Carro Armato M13/40 and the German armored cars attacked Arona where the partisans opened fire with heavy guns. The muzzle flashes of the partisan bursts were targeted by the Fascist 75 mm WW1-era artillery pieces and by German 20 mm FlaK bursts.

Before dawn, some troops encircled the partisans. Supported by the medium tank and the two armored cars, the partisans came under heavy fire and were forced to leave Arona. After entering Arona, the Fascists freed it immediately and settled in Castelletto Ticino for 2 days awaiting ferries to cross the Ticino river.

On 28th April 1945, the ferries did not arrive and they tried to reach Milan but the road was blocked. They tried to go to Novara, but the road to that city was blocked. The Fascists were then reached by the Bishop of Novara, who went to confer with them, giving them news of the great partisan insurrection and that Milan and Novara were now in partisan hands.

The fascists came to an agreement with the partisans that allowed them to go to Novara where they would wait in the Caserma Cavalli in Novara for the arrival of the Allied troops.

They arrived in Novara on 29th April and parked the Carro Armato M13/40 of Adjutant Stavani outside the barracks. The unit surrendered to soldiers of the US 34th Infantry Division on 1st May 1945.

The Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ in the Piacenza countryside

Piacenza is one of the biggest cities of the region of Emiglia-Romagna, located in the center north of the Italian peninsula. Piacenza was the capital of the homonymous province, with a population (in 1936) of 64,210 inhabitants. It was an important city for the Italian economy, with a well organized agriculture. The city also had some small companies specialized in the bodywork of cars and trucks and in the production of truck trailers. Machinery tools were also important in Piacenza, with many companies specialized in the production of lathes and other components. However, the most important companies in the area were the Azienda Generale Italiana Petroli (English: General Italian Oil Company) the only one in Italy that extracted oil until 19th April 1945, and the Arsenale Regio Esercito di Piacenza or AREP (English: Royal Army Arsenal of Piacenza). Until the armistice of September 1943, it was used mainly to produce and repair artillery pieces. After the armistice, it was renamed Arsenale di Piacenza and the workers started working for the Wehrmacht.

After the Armistice of September 1943, the German forces transformed the city into a headquarters for their units in the region. The Plazkommandantur was placed in Via Santa Franca, under Colonel Blecher’s command. Under his command were a number of units deployed in the city. In Via Cavour 64 was a Waffen-SS unit and a Sicherheitspolizei or SIPO (English: Security Police) and in Via Garibaldi 7 was another SIPO unit.

The Todt Organization, a German civil and military engineering organization responsible for a huge range of engineering projects in all the occupied territories, also had some units in Piacenza. In Piazza Cavalli 94 was its volunteer enlisting center, while in the Caserma (English: Barrack) of Via Emilia Pavese were the dormitories for the Todt workers.

The San Damiano airbase near the city was also under German control (even before the Armistice). There were also the Train Station, the bridges, the arsenal and the most important company of the city, the Officine Massarenti, specialized in the extraction of the little oil found in the Piacenza countryside.

To prevent this important city from falling into the hands of the partisans or Allied paratroopers, the garrison of Piacenza was reinforced by some Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ units. At the beginning, only 2 armored cars (other sources claim 1 armored car and an autoprotetta) and 50 soldiers under the command of Lieutenant Giovanni Ferraris arrived in the city on 20th August 1944. They were headquartered in the Caserma Paride Biselli. The first actions of the unit were essentially escort missions.

In the same period, part of the 29. Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS ‘Italia’ was deployed in the area. It was at the orders of SS-Obersturmbannführer Franz Binz’s Kampfgruppe ‘Binz’ command along with a 29th Division regiment.

The unit was extensively used in the area and, in the months after, many other soldiers and vehicles were deployed in the Piacenza countryside. On 17th March 1945, a German report gave a list of vehicles deployed by the 3ª Compagnia and 4ª Compagnia of the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ in the area of Piacenza:

In Montecchio (where the AGIP oil wells were located), these were commanded by Lieutenant Loffredo Loffredi.

Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ equipment in the area of Piacenza
Montechino garrison; Lieutenant Loffredo Loffredi
Name	Model	Number
Mitragliatrice Media Breda Modello 1937	Medium Machine gun	1
Fucile Mitragliatore Breda Modello 1930	Light machine gun	4
Moschetti Automatici Beretta (MAB)	Submachine guns	7
various	Rifles	42
various	Pistols	12
Carro Armato M15/42	Medium tank	1
Carro Armato M13/40	Medium tank	1; non-operational
Carro Armato L3	Light tank	1; non-operational
Autoblindo AB41	Armored car	2; 1 non-operational
u/k type	Motorized tricycle	3; 1 non-operational
u/k type	Motorbike	7; 5 non-operational
Rallio Garrison; Lieutenant Francesco Motta
Mitragliatrice Media Breda Modello 1937	Medium machine gun	2
Mitragliatrice Media Breda Modello 1938	Medium machine gun	4
Mitragliatrice Media FIAT-Revelli Modello 1914/1935	Medium machine gun	1
Fucile Mitragliatore Breda Modello 1930	Light machine gun	2
Moschetti Automatici Beretta	Submachine guns	6
various	Rifles	37
various	Pistols	15
Carro Armato L3	Light tank	3; 2 non-operational
Moto Guzzi Alce	Motorbike	1 non-operational
Moto Bianchi 500 M	Motorbike	1 non-operational
FIAT Balilla	Staff car	1 non-operational
Piacenza; Captain Giovanni Bodda
various	Rifle	10
various	Pistols	8
Carro Armato M13/40	Medium tank	1 non-operational
Carri Armati L6/40	Light tanks	2 non-operational
Autoprotetta	Armored personnel carrier	1 non-operational
Moto Guzzi Alce	Motorbike	1 operational
FIAT 1100	Utility car	1 non-operational
FIAT 626	Medium truck	1 operational
Bianchi Miles	Medium truck	1 operational

Unluckily, the sources do not mention when the Carri Armati M13/40 were deployed in Piacenza. It is probable that they arrived in February 1945, after some heavy clashes with partisans. In Piacenza was also located the II Battaglione SS ‘Debica’ with the 3 Carri Armati M detached from the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ after the Operazione Avanti. It seems that the tanks were only theoretically assigned to the Italian SS unit, in fact it seems that not all 3 were operational in Piacenza.

On 12th April, the situation was slightly changed by the arrival of a Carro Armato M14/41 in the Montechino garrison, which had also repaired its Carro Armato L3. The Rallio garrison had received 1 running condition Carro Armato M13/40 (probably from the Montechino garrison). It had an operational Carro Armato L3 and another one under repairs.

The Piacenza headquarter had at its disposal 1 Carro Armato M13/40, 1 Carro Armato L6/40 and an Autoblinda AB41 under repairs, while an Autoblinda AB41 and 2 Semoventi L40 da 47/32 (they arrived on 20th April) were combat ready.

On 15th April, the 3 operational medium tanks (an M13, an M14, and an M15) were assigned to the I. Waffen-Grenadier Bataillon of the Waffen-Grenadier-Regiment SS 81. of the 29. Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS ‘Italia’. The light tanks were assigned to the II. Waffen-Grenadier Bataillon ‘Nettuno’ from the same regiment, while the Autoblinde AB41 remained under Capt. Bodda’s command. The operational one, under the command of Legionnaire Medoro Minetti, was used to support the withdrawal of the Fascist garrisons in Montechino and Rallio.

The armored vehicles placed in Rallio were transported to Rivergaro and placed with the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ soldiers as garrison in the city, together with the Battaglione ‘Mantova’ of the V Brigata Nera Mobile ‘Quagliata’.

The German and Italian officers in Piacenza concentrated all the units under their command in Piacenza, apart from the I. Waffen-Grenadier Bataillon and II. Waffen-Grenadier Bataillon ‘Nettuno’. On 16th April, these latter units attacked Gropparello and Perino, inflicting heavy losses on the partisans.

During the next few days, the Brazilian forces of the Força Expedicionária Brasileira (English: Brazilian Expeditionary Force) and US troops entered Bologna and advanced further north.

The partisans tried to enter the city of Piacenza from all directions. The I. Waffen-Grenadier Bataillon retreated from Gropparello with their three medium tanks on 24th April. Two tanks were commanded by Vice Brigadier Donati and Vice Brigadier Martini, while the third one was probably Lieutenant Rinetti’s. The unit reached Pontenure, deploying on a defensive line along the Nure river, with the headquarters of the unit placed in a nearby farm on the Via Emilia.

On 25th April morning, 1 Semovente L40 da 47/32 under Second Lieutenant Giancarlo Fazioli left the Piacenza barracks of the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’, leaving the city and taking the Via Emilia with 7 or 8 soldiers and a German officer. Their task was to reach the Allied reconnaissance units to counter them and slow down the Allied advance.

After crossing the II. Waffen-Grenadier Bataillon ‘Nettuno’ defensive line, south of Piacenza, it met Allied forces near Montale, 6 km south of Piacenza, and after firing some 47 mm rounds in the direction of the Allied forces, retreated before becoming an easy target for Allied artillery.

On the same day, I. Waffen-Grenadier Bataillon exchanged some light gun bursts with a platoon of A Company of the 755th Tank battalion of the US Army, which supported some troops of the 135th Infantry Division. The skirmish cost the life of a single Italian soldier.

After the skirmish, German commander SS-Obersturmbannführer Franz Binz, who commanded the Italian SS, ordered the battalion to retreat and to entrench itself in a defensive line closer to Piacenza. The I. Waffen-Grenadier Bataillon ‘Debica’ was located in the south-east part of Piacenza, in the city of Montale.

The 1. Kompanie (English: 1st Company), under the command of Waffen-SS Obersturmführer Giorgio Giorgi, was placed on the left side of the defensive line, the 2. Kompanie (English: 2nd Company), under the command of Waffen-SS Obersturmführer Vittorio Passéra, was on the right side, while the Abteilung-Schwere-Waffen (English: Heavy Weapons Section) of the 4. Kompanie (English: 4th Company) under Waffen-SS Obersturmführer Franco Lanza was a few hundred meters behind them with the support guns. The heavy equipment of the unit consisted of 81 mm mortars and some Cannoni da 47/32 Modello 1935 or 1939 anti-tank guns.

A few months before, the unit was equipped with 6 75 mm mountain howitzers, 6 Cannoni da 47/32 Modello 1935 or 1939 anti-tank guns, and three 20 mm automatic cannons, but it is not clear if some were lost in the previous weeks and how many were deployed in Montale.

On the morning of 26th April, the US soldiers of the 135th Infantry Division, supported by Sherman tanks of A Company, A platoon of B Company, and some M7 Priests of the 755th Tank battalion, stormed the defensive line of the Italian SS soldiers. Arriving within range of the German produced Panzerfausts (used for the first time by the units in combat) in the hands of the Italian soldiers, the US tanks were easily knocked out, while the Italian tanks and guns on the rear guard started heavy suppression fire in the direction of the US forces.

During the attack, the US soldiers were forced to retreat, leaving the task of breaking through the Italian lines to the Shermans. Some minutes after the start of the battle, the three medium tanks of the ‘Leonessa’ assigned to the Kampfgruppe ‘Binz’ arrived in the area, starting to fire at the US tanks. Some sources claim that there was probably also a Semovente L40 da 47/32 with them.

During the 20 minute-long battle, 2 Shermans and an M7 Priest were destroyed, while many others were damaged by mortar shells, Panzerfausts, and 47 mm armor piercing rounds and subsequently abandoned.

During the fighting, Waffen-SS Obersturmführer Giorgio Giorgi, a pair of NCOs and at least 4 soldiers of Kampfgruppe ‘Binz’ were killed. To these losses need to be added a squad of soldiers of the 2. Kompanie that was barricaded in a farm and was attacked by one of the Shermans. After a brief skirmish, the Italian soldiers surrendered. Corporal Major Rosario Carli was shot by US troops after surrendering because he refused to hand over personal items and for responding to the beating he suffered.

The Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ suffered the loss of a driver and of Second Lieutenant Arnaldo Rinetti, the last Italian tank crew member killed in action during the Second World War. The information about his death is not so clear. Many sources claim different variants of which, in the past years, some were refuted.

At least two tanks were commanded by Vice Brigadier Donati and Lieutenant Rinetti. If the Semovente L40 da 47/32 was really deployed in the battle, it seems that the vehicle commander was Legionnaire Mimmo Bontempelli.

During the battle, one of the medium tanks was hit, probably by a US 75 mm armor piercing round. Which Italian tank was hit is nowadays a mystery. Lieutenant Loffredi, during an interview reported in the book …Come il Diamante, stated that, during the retreat after the battle, the Carro Armato M13/40 was present, commanded by Vice Brigadier Donati, while all the other sources claim that the vehicle targeted by the American shell was a Carro Armato M13/40. However, the armor piercing round penetrated an unspecified frontal part of the tank, killing the driver, cutting his legs and lightly wounding the commander who got out of the vehicle with slight burns. The crew tried to restart the vehicle, but it probably suffered a mechanical failure.

Lt. Rinetti did not abandon the burning tank and continued to fire with the main gun even if the vehicle was immobile. From the testimony of a veteran of the 29. Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS ‘Italia’, it seems that, from the crew, 3 crew members exited. Lt. Rinetti was probably killed by a splinter of armor after a second shot hit his tank a few minutes later.

A source claims that he was killed by partisans after surrender, a hypothesis refuted because there were no partisans in the area. Another interesting hypothesis was the one that claimed that Lt. Rinetti was killed by the breech of the 47 mm gun during recoil.

This hypothesis is plausible as Italian medium tanks were cramped vehicles and, with a fifth crew member, the space inside would be really limited but. However, it needs to be noticed that, during the same day, Vice Brigadier Casoni was hit in the face by the 47 mm gun breech during recoil and, after the battle, he went to the Piacenza military infirmary to be treated.

The source which states that Lt. Rinetti died from the gun recoil was probably a confusion, created perhaps by a veteran who unwittingly mixed the two stories.

Another source claims that Lt. Rinetti was captured by US troops and transported to a prisoner camp, where he was shot by partisans to take revenge for all their fellow comrades killed by the ‘Leonessa’ tanks in the last months of war in the Piacenza area. However, this claim appears to have no supporting sources.

Anyway, the US Army had already won the battle and another heavy tribute of life was not necessary. For this reason, the fight was brief and, for the rest of the day, the Allied forces maintained the Italian positions under heavy artillery fire. This was also done to prevent the Italian soldiers from capturing the damaged Sherman and Priests abandoned on the battlefield.

The I. Waffen-Grenadier Bataillon ‘Debica’ retreated from Montale and was redeployed between Via Emilia and Mortizza, where one of the two river ferries used to reach the northern shore of the Po river was stationed.

During the battle between the I. Waffen-Grenadier Bataillon ‘Debica’ and the US soldiers, the partisans had infiltrated the city and the Fascist forces of the city fought back, supported by the soldiers of the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’, the operational Autoblindo AB41 of Vice Brigadier Campanini, a tank (model unspecified but probably the Carro Armato L6/40 or a Carro Armato L3) and an automatic cannon.

On the night of 26th April, all the ‘Leonessa’s’ guns, ammunition and fuel depots were destroyed to prevent partisan capture. The non-operational vehicles were also destroyed, including the Autoblindo AB41 of Lt. Minetti.

The vehicles that survived destruction in Piacenza were:

• 2 Semoventi L40 da 47/32
• 1 Carro Armato L6/40 under repair
• 1 Carro Armato M13/40 of unknown status
• 1 Autoblindo AB41

2 medium tanks assigned to the I. Waffen-Grenadier Bataillon ‘Debica’ (model unknown).
1 Carro Armato L3 assigned to the II. Waffen-Grenadier Bataillon ‘Nettuno’.

During the night, the majority of German and Italian units crossed the Po river under the cover of darkness. The Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ and the ‘Debica’ and ‘Nettuno’ battalions remained on the southern shore of the river to defend the city.

The Allied troops could easily enter the city and destroy the ferries with their armored forces, but they had made an agreement in the past days with the partisans. The partisans would free the city and then the Allied troops could enter. This decision favored the Fascist soldiers in the city that, with a few tanks, could slow down the partisan liberation.

On 27th April, the partisans suffered heavy losses and a total of 18 partisans lost their lives during two different clashes with the Fascists. Two medium tanks were under ‘Debica’s’ command, along with the last L3 of ‘Nettuno’. The Semoventi L40 da 47/32 were protecting the pier of Mortizza’s ferry for the duration of the day.

The I. Waffen-Grenadier Bataillon ‘Debica’ was not employed in action on 27th April and, at dawn on 28th April, was transferred to the northern shore of the Po river from Mortizza. During the crossing, some shells fell near the ferry without causing losses. The two medium tanks were probably too heavy for the Mortizza ferry and, on 27th April, they left the Italian SS unit to reach the other ferry pier in San Rocco al Porto, less than 5 km from Mortizza ferry.

The tanks waited all day and, on the morning of 28th April 1945, one of the two tanks was transferred to the other shore.

The second tank, claimed by Lt. Giancarlo Grazioli to be a Carro Armato M13/40, remained on the southern shore to defend the pier but was destroyed by artillery fire during the same day at an unknown hour.

The remaining 20 soldiers of the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ and 20 soldiers of the 162. Infanterie-Division ‘Turkistan’ were taken from the command of Lieutenant of 1st Class Loffredi and transferred to Lieutenant Romolo Paroletti.

Lt. Paroletti divided the soldiers in squads of 10 soldiers (5 Italian and 5 Turkmeni) that entrenched on the main roads of Piacenza: the State Road for Cremona, Via Emilia Parmense, Via Emilia Pavese, and State Road 45.

The soldiers were well equipped. They took all the Italian firearms that remained in the city, such as heavy and light machine guns and submachine guns, dozens of hand grenades and also some really rare Italian anti-tank hand grenades.

The Turkmeni were also equipped with 8.8 cm Raketenwerfer 43 ‘Puppchen’ anti-tank rocket launchers.

The night of 28th April passed calmly, with Lieutenant Paroletti in a medium tank that patrolled the city roads.

Lt. Paroletti mentioned that the tank was a Carro Armato M14/41. If this information is true, it probably means that the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ mechanics in Piacenza had repaired the second Carro Armato M13/40 before the partisan insurrection and US attack.

Unfortunately, this information cannot be confirmed. However, the book …Come il Diamante reports that an Carro Armato M13/40 was left to defend the San Rocco pier.

Three or 4 medium tanks had left the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ barracks in Piacenza on 26th April 1945. A Carro Armato M13/40 was knocked out in Montale, while the rest retreated. The Carro Armato M15/42 crossed the Po river on 28th April, the last Carro Armato M13/40 was destroyed by artillery fire on 28th April while the last tank, a Carro Armato M14/41, was used to patrol the city of Piacenza.

During the night of 28th April 1945, the Carro Armato M14/41 was connected to an old WW1-era FIAT 18BL which the tank towed through all the city, taking all the Italian and Fascist soldiers still in Piacenza. Shortly after 0400 hrs., the soldiers reached San Rocco al Porto. The troops dismounted from the vehicles and crossed the Po river with the ferry.

Arriving on the northern shore, the ferry was destroyed and the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ veterans claimed that they were able to see US tanks already on the southern shore. The Carro Armato M14/41 that Lieutenant Paroletti used all night on patrol was ferried with the soldiers, while the old truck was abandoned near the shore, where dozens of damaged vehicles lay abandoned by the Axis forces.

While the soldiers were leaving the southern shore, a Carro Armato L6/40 tank reached their position at maximum speed. It was the Carro Armato L6/40 of the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ deployed in Piacenza which, during the last days, was blocked in the barracks for maintenance. During the night, the crew had repaired it and was ready to transport it on the other shore but the Germans refused this, probably due to the lack of time. For the transport of the light tank, the ferry had to do 2 river crossings, wasting time, fuel (which probably they did not have) and increasing the risk that US or partisan forces would attack the ferry.

Lieutenant Romolo Paroletti ordered the sabotage of the tank and, when the ferry was on its way to cross the river with the medium tank loaded on, he ordered firing a pair of 47 mm rounds to totally destroy it.

On the morning of 28th April, the survivors of Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ and the Kampfgruppe ‘Binz’ restarted their march in the northern direction towards Erba to reach the rest of the 29. Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS ‘Italia’.

Their real task was to reach Travagliato, near Brescia, to join the Kommandostab Ersatz Einheiten der italienischen Waffenverbände der SS (English: SS Italian Armed Forces Reserve Unit Command) under SS-Sturmbannführer Luis Thaler. Together, they were then meant to reach the Alto Adige region passing through Val Camonica.

For unknown reasons, only some soldiers of the 162. Infanterie-Division ‘Turkistan’ reached Travagliato.

On 28th April 1945, the soldiers of Kampfgruppe ‘Binz’ entered Santo Stefano Lodigiano, already liberated by the partisans. The partisans, seeing the Italian Fascist soldiers, preferred to retreat from the city and hid themselves in a nearby forest. The Italians freed hundreds of Fascist soldiers captured during the partisan attack of the previous days and also a dozen trucks.

The column restarted the march with a total of about 2,000 soldiers, including about 100 Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’s’ soldiers under Lieutenant Loffredi’s command. Together with them were about a hundred trucks, cars and motorbikes, 3 tanks (2 Carri Armati M15/42s and a Carro Armato M14/41), the Semovente L40 da 47/32 and an Autoblindo AB41 armored car. There were also some 75 mm howitzers, 4 Cannoni da 47/32 and some 20 mm automatic cannons.

The Semovente L40 da 47/32 of Second Lieutenant Giancarlo Fazioli fell into a canal near the road on the same day due to the ground collapsing under its weight. It was recovered after a few hours with a pair of oxen pulling it out of the canal.

In order to avoid US air strikes, the column was divided into three sections, with the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ vehicles in the front section, the II. Waffen-Grenadier Bataillon ‘Nettuno’ in the center section, and the I. Waffen-Grenadier Bataillon ‘Debica’ at the rear of the column.

For about half an hour, the reconnaissance groups of the column had a skirmish with partisan forces in Guardamiglio, where the partisans had a 20 mm automatic cannon on top of a bell tower and opened fire on the forward units of the column. After the fighting, the column was attacked by 3 Republic P-47 ‘Thunderbolts’ US ground attack planes.

During the attack, the last Lancia 3Ro of the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ was damaged by 0.50 in. machine gun rounds, while the quick reaction of the Fascist soldiers damaged an US plane. Hauptmann Noweck, with a German 20 mm FlaK, shot down one of the planes.

The Lancia was towed by a medium tank and the column quickly restarted to move, reaching Codogno, where the column was ready to fight the partisans in the city. These had captured some German soldiers of another unit.

The unit commander and SS-Obersturmbannführer Franz Binz started discussions with the partisans and, in the evening, they managed to convince the partisans to free the Germans, or they would shell the city with artillery fire.

At midnight, the column stopped. The Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ stayed in Livraga, the II. Waffen-Grenadier Bataillon ‘Nettuno’ in Ospedaletto, and the I. Waffen-Grenadier Bataillon ‘Debica’ stayed in Somaglia. The Semovente L40 da 47/32 crew slept in Brembio, near Livraga, where the Fascist soldiers entered the city pub where there were also some partisans. Before entering the city, in order to avoid unnecessary bloodshed, the partisans and fascists agreed to a ceasefire for the night.

On 29th April 1945, the march restarted on secondary roads to avoid the US planes. Around noon, the column reached Sesto San Giovanni, where some partisan commanders from Lodi arrived to have the column surrender.

German Commander Franz Binz strongly refused to surrender, intending to reach the city of Erba at all costs. During these hours, the Semovente L40 da 47/32 commanded by Lt. Fazioli was assigned to the ‘Debica’ battalion.

The soldiers under Lieutenant Loffredi’s command were composed of about 80 GNR soldiers of the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’, 9 German sailors from the ferry, one female auxiliary, 4 militiamen, probably from the XIII Brigata Nera ‘Turchetti’, the Carro Armato M13/40 (the other one was abandoned due to mechanical failure), the Autoblindo AB41 and 2 trucks, of which one damaged. All the soldiers were well armed. Some hours before, they learned of the death of Benito Mussolini and the majority of the ‘Turchetti’ militiamen decided to return to their homes.

In Locate Triulzi, Lieutenant Loffredi’s forces, which now served as the vanguard of the column with about 600 ‘Nettuno’ soldiers, met some partisans. After a furious discussion between Lt. Loffredi and the partisan commander of the area, the partisans left the small city without shooting a single bullet.

During the night, at 2300 hrs., part of the column tried to advance but was blocked by a roadblock in Zizzolo and surrendered to the partisans.

On the morning of 30th April, the column restarted the march but was blocked again in Melzo by the partisans. After a few hours, they reached an agreement. They restarted the march but they were shortly after reached by US tanks from the 34th Infantry Division. SS-Obersturmbannführer Franz Binz finally surrendered to the Allied forces.

The troops under Lieutenant Loffredi had taken another road the night before and were not blocked in Melzo. They moved toward San Giuliano Milanese, Caleppio and Truccazzano, finally approaching Trecella, where they took a break to repair the Carro Armato M13/40 that still worked, but not at its best. Lt. Loffredi, along with some officers, reached the school of Trecella, where they spoke with an US NCO, trying to gain time while the crew repaired the tank.

When the tank was ready to move again, the force was encircled by at least 6 M18 Hellcat tanks, so Lt. Loffredi was forced to surrender.

From a postwar letter of Lt. Loffredi, it is claimed that the last tank was an Carro Armato M13/40 and that the US tank crew found it ready, permitting the crew to restart the engine with the crank, laughing a lot for all the operation. All the soldiers under Lt. Loffredi were taken prisoner without any problems.

Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ in Milan

In mid October 1944, the Compagnia Addestramento (English: Training Company) of the ‘Leonessa’ was transferred to the former Reggimento ‘Savoia cavalleria’ barracks in Via Monti with training tasks. Shortly after, it became part of the combat ready unit.

It was commanded by Major Egidio Zerbio. It was first planned to become an independent battalion but, due to the lack of men and vehicles, it remained under Leonessa’s command with logistic and support tasks. It supported the troops deployed in Piacenza and defended the Oleoblitz, the last refinery of Italy to produce fuel from the oil that came from Piacenza.

The unit remained a training unit and trained new crew members that were assigned to different Gruppo Corazzato companies around northern Italy after the courses.

The crew members were trained to drive armored cars in the city streets. For the tank driving lessons, the fields filled with US bomb craters near the barracks were used.

For training duties, a Carro Armato M13/40 and a Carro Armato M14/41 arrived from Turin. These were shortly accompanied by 2 Carri Armati L3 light tanks and a Semovente L40 da 47/32 recovered from some depots in Milan and repaired by the workshop of the unit in Milan.

In early 1945, Lieutenant Barone found 5 or 6 Italian medium tanks in Chiari. These arrived in Milan by railway. In the book I Mezzi Corazzati Italiani della Guerra Civile 1943-1945, the writer mentions a German document reported that the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ recovered about 30 damaged medium tanks from the Germans, who were in the process of scrapping them.

In the same book, Paolo Crippa states that only 5 of these tanks were repairable. This could suggest that the vehicles found by Lieutenant Barone were part of this batch. This also clarifies why the depot of the Distaccamento di Milano (English: Milan Detachment), as it was called, was full of spare parts. They were probably recovered from badly damaged tanks. The tanks were probably sent to Turin after repairs.

On 16th December 1944, the Distaccamento di Milano participated in the last speech of Mussolini at the Lyric Theater. Mussolini then climbed on the turret of a Carro Armato M15/42 tank outside the theater to make a second shorter speech. On the same day, Mussolini visited the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ barracks in Milan, where 2 Carri Armati M15/42 and 2 Autoblinde AB41 were lined up.

This means that the Carro Armato M13/40 was under repair, or the tank was assigned to another company. The first hypothesis makes more sense because the unit was created only in mid October 1944 and needed time to train the crews. It seems improbable that, in just 2 months, the tank was reassigned.

However, on 25th April 1945, Lieutenant Morandi participated with a medium tank in supporting the Fascist units in Sesto San Giovanni. With some soldiers, he then reached the Fiera Campionaria depot in Milan to take some freshly built armored vehicles not yet assigned to the Axis forces. They recovered 2 Autoblinde AB43 medium reconnaissance armored cars.

The same night, the company prepared to leave Milan and reach Valtellina. The Distaccamento di Milano was deployed with its armored vehicles in the front and rear of the column of Fascist forces leaving Milan.

The column left Milan at about 0600 hrs. on 26th April and the march for the valley was eventful, with some air attacks (without significant damage) and some machine gun fire from a partisan motorcycle that quickly retreated under the fire of the 47 mm cannon of the semovente.

During their way to Como, a Carro Armato M13/40 of the Distaccamento di Milano had a mechanical failure and Lt. Morandi shot some pistol rounds into the engine to make it unrepairable. One of the Autoblinde AB43s also had a failure of the fuel ignition system, but the failure was shortly repaired and the armored car reached Como. On the afternoon of 26th April, the Distaccamento di Milano arrived in Caserma De Cristoforis in Como. There, it surrendered to the partisans, as Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana’s High Commander, General Niccolò Nicchiarelli, had ordered.

The number of vehicles in service with the Distaccamento di Milano is uncertain. When it was transferred to Milan, it had only a Carro Armato M13/40 and a Carro Armato M14/41. Two months later, it had at least 2 Carri Armati M15/42, 2 Autoblinde AB41 armored cars, a Carro Armato L3 light tank, and probably a Carro Armato M13/40.

Before departing from Milan on 25th April night or 26th April early morning, Vincenzo Costa, one of the soldiers of the unit, wrote a list mentioning that the column that was leaving Milan had 10 tanks and 4 armored cars. The number of armored cars coincided with those present in the unit 4 months earlier (2 Autoblinde AB41 + 2 Autoblinde AB43 taken the day before), while the number of tanks had increased, although some may have been Carro Armato L3 light tanks from other Milanese units.

Comando Provinciale della Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana

The Reparto Corazzato (English: Armored Department) of the Compagnia Comando (English: Command Company) of the Comando Provinciale della Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana (English: Provincial Command of the Republican National Guard) in Varese had in its ranks a Carro Armato M13/40 and an Autoblinda AB41 armored car recovered shortly after the Armistice by Captain Giacomo Michaud from the countryside of Varese.

These were probably used only to defend the Varese’s command building and escort some convoys without fighting until September 1944. In September 1944, the High Command of the National Republican Army ordered the Provincial Command to send its armored vehicles in the Val d’Ossola area against the partisan brigades.

The vehicles, under Capt. Michaud’s command, arrived at Laveno and were embarked on a ferry, arriving in Cannobio on 9th September. However, only the Carro Armato M13/40 was disembarked while the Autoblinda AB41 that suffered from mechanical failure and returned to Varese.

The Carro Armato M13/40 took part in the Operazione ‘Avanti’ against the Ossola Republic, but in another sector of the battlefield. It departed from Cannobio and advanced east to Domodossola supporting 2 Nazi-Fascist columns. It was deployed in the area and then in Val Formazza against Partisan units until late October 1944. In that period it was heavily damaged, while the Cap. Michaud was badly wounded.

The Carro Armato M13/40 returned to the workshop in Varese but could not be repaired due to a lack of spare parts. Together with the unrepaired Autoblinda AB41, it was sent probably to Genoa or Turin. There they were repaired by specialized workshops and then were assigned to other unknown units.

XXI Brigata Nera ‘Stefano Rizzardi’

In a document from the Undersecretary of the Ministry of the Interior Giorgio Pini, in January 1945, the XXI Brigata Nera ‘Stefano Rizzardi’ (English: 21st Black Brigade) of Verona had a Carro Armato M13/40. The unit was named after Bersagliere Stefano Rizzardi, who died on 26th October 1943 and was the first Italian soldier awarded the Memorial Gold Medal for Military Valor.

Unfortunately, little information is known about the black brigade of Verona. In August 1944, the commander was Luigi Sioli and the total brigade force was about 150 soldiers.

The tank, used to patrol the streets of the city of Verona, was probably taken from the depot of the former 27° Deposito Misto Reggimentale when it was disbanded.

Partisan Service

About the service of the former Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leoncello’ tanks, the Partisan commander Giacomo Cibra, nicknamed ‘Nino’ that commanded the 5° Squadra Volante (English: 5th Flying Squad) of the 11ª Brigata Partigiana ‘Matteotti’ (English: 11th Partisan Brigade).

In his book written after the war Cibra explained that, on 24th April 1945 night, while the majority of the Partisans attacked the Axis forces at Carugate, his detachment remained in Pioltello stopped a Nazi-Fascist column of vehicles in Cerusco sul Naviglio, near the tram station.
The Axis soldiers, aware of the imminent end of the war, surrendered weapons and vehicles peacefully. Cibra explained that created a column composed of 2 tanks (2 Carri Armati M13/40 of the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leoncello’), a German armored car, 2 trucks full of partisans, and a staff car in which Cibra himself took his seat.
The column, after small skirmishes along the journey, reached Milan, entering in the northeastern boulevard Corso Buenos Aires.
As they advanced on the boulevard, at the height of Porta Venezia, in the downtown they met a car full of fascist soldiers that opened fire against the Partisan column.
One of the two tanks, probably while the driver tried to stop it to open fire, broke a track hitting at high speed a sidewalk and was abandoned.

The other tank, nicknamed ‘TEMPESTA’ (English: Storm), was deployed first to patrol some streets of the city and, on 26th April 1945 it was deployed in the final Partisan assault on Piazza 4 Novembre, where was located the Milanese headquarter of the Xa Divisione MAS.

On 27th April 1945 the tank nicknamed ‘TEMPESTA’ was transported to Pioltello, city of origin of most of the partisans of the 11ª Brigata Partigiana ‘Matteotti’ after the end of the battle in Milan. It was shown in the great partisan parade in Pioltello on 1st May 1945.
Always from Cibra’s testimony, the damaged tank was transported to Cernusco sul Naviglio where it was repaired in a local workshop with spare track links that Cibra had recovered somewhere in Milan.

Another Carro Armato M13/40 was taken on 25th April 1945 by the partisans of the 183ª Brigata Partigiana ‘Garibaldi’ (English: 183th Partisan Brigade) in Saronno. The tank was damaged by a Panzerfaust hit and the partisans took it to a Elettro Meccanica Societa Anonima or CEMSA (English: Caproni Electro Mechanical Limited Company) workshop. There, the tank was repaired by two Soviet prisoners of war that joined the Italian communist partisans after escaping from a fascist prison camp.

It was put in service again to patrol the streets of the city of Saronno during the partisan uprising and then publicly shown after the war for some time in the city.

At least one Carro Armato M13/40 was captured by the partisans in the Raggruppamento Anti Partigiani barrack of Turin. Partisan’s War Diary declares that the vehicle was used during the fighting to liberate the city. It seems not clear if this statement is correct, in fact, if the vehicle had been in a condition to march, the Fascist forces would have taken him with them and not abandoned a working vehicle in enemy hands.
Some Italian sources, about the Comando Provinciale della Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana of Varese, only the armored car was sent back to Turin or Genoa for reparations while the tank remained in Varese where it was delivered peacefully by the Fascist to the Partisans at the war’s end on 25th April 1945. In the image of this vehicle it seems a Carro Armato M13/40 of 1st series or a Carro Armato M14/41; unfortunately the bad quality of the image and the presence of Partisans in front of it, did not permit a clear identification.

Camouflage and Markings

The Carri Armati M13/40s used in the first months of the Repubblica Sociale Italiana usually maintained the common monochrome Kaki Sahariano (English: Saharan Khaki) desert camouflage used by the majority of former Regio Esercito vehicles.

The Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leoncello’ medium tanks (4 Carri Armati M13/40 and a Carro Armato M15/42) received three different camouflage schemes: at least 1 Carro Armato M13/40 was painted with a green-gray camouflage (probably the one applied at Ansaldo), while some other Carri Armati M13/40 received some medium brown and dark green spots camouflage. The Carro Armato M15/42 (and maybe also some Carri Armati M13/40s) were in Kaki Sahariano camouflage.

On the sides of the turret, at the front, lions were painted standing on two legs in a white rectangle. The lion was the symbol of the ‘Leoncello’. At the center of the turret was a tricolor Italian flag. Above the tricolor was painted a Roman numeral, indicating the number of the squadron, in this case the I Squadrone Carri M. Under the tricolor, in Arabic numerals, the number of the tank in the squadron was painted. These symbols were also painted on the turret rear, while on the front hull armored plate, between the driver and machine gunner’s positions, was only an Italian flag. Each tank also received a name painted near the driver’s slot. The names were painted in white capital letters.

The 2nd tank of the squadron was painted in green-gray camouflage and was named ‘TEMPESTA’ (English: Storm). The 3rd tank of the same squadron had the three tone camouflage but its name is not known.

The Gruppo Squadroni Corazzati ‘San Giusto’ tanks were painted in standard Kaki Sahariano camouflage and received the unit’s coat of arms on the front of the casemate.
The coat of arms changed with the evolution of the unit. The earliest one was a simple Italian flag. After Spring 1944, the black silhouette of an Italian medium tank was added on the flag. After late 1944, the flag was repainted as waving with the black silhouette of an Italian self-propelled gun.

At least one of the Carro Armato M13/40 medium tanks of the Raggruppamento Anti Partigiani was painted with a particular three-tone camouflage similar to the Continentale (English: Continental) applied by Ansaldo on the tanks ready to be delivered. The Continentale had dark green and reddish brown spots on the original Kaki Sahariano camouflage.

In this case, it seems that the unit totally covered the Kaki Sahariano original paint with two different shades of dark green spots and then they outlined the border of the spots with slight Kaki Sahariano lines.

The medium tanks of the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ were painted in usual Kaki Sahariano camouflage with the unit’s symbol, a red ‘m’ with a lictorial beam (symbol of the Fascist party) intersected by a lictorian beam. Under it was the acronym GNR painted in red. These coats of arms were painted on the turret sides and rear and were the only symbols painted on the Carri Armati M13/40 of which there are available images. The tanks also had a license plate with the acronym GNR. These plates were probably the original Regio Esercito ones but with the acronym RE covered. This hypothesis is supported because one of the license plates, ‘Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana 4340’, was probably the former ‘Regio Esercito 4340’.

After late 1944, the camouflage was modified on almost all the medium tanks, even if at least one Carro Armato M13/40 deployed in Turin was not repainted. The vehicles were now also painted with a camouflage similar to the Continentale, with dark green and medium brown spots, sometimes covering the coat of arms on the turret sides and sometimes maintaining them.

Conclusion

The Carro Armato M13/40 was already an obsolete vehicle when it was substituted by the Carro Armato M14/41 in 1941. Its main problem was the underpowered engine that did not permit it a good speed or good off road characteristics.

However, when used to stop the partisan maneuvers, the old Carri Armati M13/40 proved to be a more than adequate vehicle. Fighting the partisans, who did not have anti-tank weapons such as cannons, anti-tank guns, or rocket launchers, medium tanks were virtually unstoppable.

The absence of sand also favored the tank, which suffered fewer mechanical failures on the Italian mainland. This also permitted the crews to operate on mountain streets where partisans operated without overstressing the engines.

Carro Armato M13/40 Specification
Size (L-W-H)	4.915 x 2.280 x 2.370 m
Weight, battle ready	13 tonnes
Crew	4 (driver, machine gunner, gunner/commander, and loader)
Engine	FIAT-SPA 8T Modello 1940 diesel, 8-cylinder, 11,140 cm³ 125 hp at 1’800 rpm
Speed	30 km/h
Range	210 km
Armament	one Cannone da 47/32 Modello 1935 with 87 rounds, four 8 mm Breda Modello 1938 medium machine guns with 2,592 rounds
Armor	Hull: 30 mm front, 25 mm sides and rear. Turret: 30 mm front, 25 mm sides and rear.
Production	710 built until mid 1941, less than 25 in RSI service.

Sources

I Mezzi Corazzati Italiani della Guerra Civile 1943-1945 – Paolo Crippa – TankMasterSpecial Italian and English Edition Volume 5

I Carristi di Mussolini: Il Gruppo Corazzato “Leonessa” dalla MSVN alla RSI – Paolo Crippa – Witness to war Volume 3

… Come il Diamante. I Carristi Italiani 1943-45 – Marco Nava and Sergio Corbatti – Laran Editions

Dal Fronte Jugoslavo alla Val d’Ossola, Cronache di guerriglia e guerra civile. 1941-1945 – Ajmone Finestra – Mursia

Il Battaglione SS “Debica”: Una documentazione: SS-Freiwilligen Bataillon “Debica” – Leonardo Sandri – eBook

La “repubblica” dell’Ossola – Paolo Bologna

Storia dei Reparti Corazzati della Repubblica Sociale Italiana 1943-1945 – Paolo Crippa – Marvia Edizioni

I Sbarbàa e i Tosànn che Fecero la Repubblica, Fatti, Storie, Documenti dal Primo Dopoguerra alla Liberazione a Pioltello – Giacomo Cibra – Lupetti

Italian Social Republic (1944-1945)
Improvised Armored Truck – 1 Converted

The FIAT 666N Blindato (English: Armored) was an Italian improvised heavy armored truck used by the 630ª Compagnia Ordine Pubblico (English: 630th Public Order Company) of Piacenza, a unit assigned to the Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana (English: National Republican Guard), the Italian military police.

This armored behemoth was obviously used not used for public duties, as the name of the unit would suggest, but as an armored personnel carrier and armored car in anti-partisan operations in the city of Piacenza and its country-side, where it became famous with the partisans for its sturdiness and invulnerability to small arms.

Context

After the end of the North African Campaign with the defeat of the Axis troops in May 1943, the popular discontent with Fascism increased. The King of Italy, Vittorio Emanuele III, took the opportunity to regain power.

With the collaboration of some fascist generals, Benito Mussolini, the dictator of Italy, was deposed and a Monarchist government was created. In less than 2 months, an armistice with the Allied powers was in place.

On 8 September 1943, the signing of the armistice between the Kingdom of Italy and the Allied powers was made public, to the great surprise of the Italian soldiers that were left unaware of the situation up to that point.

The Germans immediately launched Fall Achse (English: Operation Axis), an already planned operation to capture the remaining Italian troops, equipment and territory. This operation lasted from 8 September to 23 September 1943, and saw them occupy all the territories under Italian control in Italy, including the northern and central parts of the Italian peninsula still in the hands of the Axis forces.

Mussolini was freed from a secret prison on 12 September 1943 by a task force of Fallschirmjäger (English: Paratroopers) under Waffen-SS command and transferred to Germany. There, he met Adolf Hitler and decided to found a new republic in the Italian territories not yet occupied by the Allies.

On 23 September 1943, Mussolini returned to Italy, founding the new Repubblica Sociale Italiana with two new military corps, the Esercito Nazionale Repubblicano (English: National Republican Army) and the Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana or GNR (English: National Republican Guard), a paramilitary corps with public order and military police tasks. However, some units under GNR command, such as the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ (English: Armored Group), were well equipped and trained and acted as normal army units.
These corps were formed from Italian prisoners of war in German prisoner camps, and from not already enlisted young Italians, or Italian workers not necessary to the military economy of the nation.

Apart from some well-equipped and trained units, the majority of the Italian military forces were composed of poorly trained and equipped soldiers, mainly used by the Axis command in anti-partisan operations, or to support German troops on Italian soil.

The necessity of these units located in the small cities of Italy as garrisons to combat the partisan formations were realized and, for that the compagnie di ordine pubblico (English: public order companies), small police units composed of fascist militiamen badly equipped by the Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana, were deployed on the whole Italian peninsula not yet liberated by the Allied forces.

During their service, the compagnie di ordine pubblico were also used to help other GNR units in anti-partisan operations, to maintain public order in the cities and prevent partisan sabotages.

The Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana was born after the proposal of Renato Ricci to merge all of the paramilitary units of the RSI (Carabinieri, militias, Polizia dell’Africa Italiana) into one large corps.

In the first half of 1944, the Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana could rely on about 130,000 militiamen, soldiers, auxiliaries, police officers and Fiamme Bianche (English: White Flames), the name given to the young fascists between 14 to 18 years old (about 12,000), and were rarely deployed in active service.

The 130,000 men deployed by the Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana were assigned to 10 regional inspectorates, 58 provincial commands, 5 militia territorial defense regiments, 5 battaglioni ordine pubblico (English: public order battalions), 53 compagnie ordine pubblico, 6 territorial battalions and other non-military units, such as investigation units, special police inspectorates, training and juvenile units.

Piacenza and the 630ª Compagnia Ordine Pubblico

Piacenza is one of the biggest cities of the region of Emiglia-Romagna, located in the center north of the Italian peninsula. Piacenza was the capital of the homonymous province, with a population (in 1936) of 64,210 inhabitants. It was an important city for the Italian economy, with a well organized agriculture. The city also had some small companies specialized in the bodywork of cars and trucks and in the production of truck trailers. Machinery tools were also important in Piacenza, with many companies specialized in the production of lathes and other components.

The city had one of the oldest arsenals of the Kingdom of Italy: the Arsenale Regio Esercito di Piacenza or AREP (English: Royal Army Arsenal of Piacenza). Until the armistice of September 1943, it was used mainly to produce and repair artillery pieces. After the armistice, it was renamed Arsenale di Piacenza and the workers restarted working for the Wehrmacht.

During the war, in the Piacenza province, about 2,400 soldiers, militiamen and partisans lost their lives. About ¼ of them were from Piacenza. Another 5,000 Italian soldiers from the province were forced to enlist as workers in Germany and disappeared for 2 years after the Armistice.

Another great problem was the Allied bombardments. During the war, from 2 May 1944 onward, about 30 formations of Allied 4-engine bombers attacked the city, plus about 60 other attacks of smaller formations or singular planes. During the bombardments, 266 civilians died and 10,000 civilians evacuated from the city. In total, 205 buildings were totally destroyed by Allied bombs, 116 heavily damaged and some hundreds slightly damaged.

After the Armistice of September 1943, the German forces transformed the city into a headquarters for their units in the region. The Plazkommandantur was placed in Via Santa Franca, under Colonel Blecher’s command. Under its command were a number of units deployed in the city. In Via Cavour 64 was a Waffen-SS unit and the Sicherheitspolizei or SIPO (English: Security Police) and in Via Garibaldi 7 was another SIPO unit.

The Todt Organization, a German civil and military engineering organization responsible for a huge range of engineering projects in all the occupied territories, also had some units in Piacenza. In Piazza Cavalli 94 was its volunteer enlisting center, while in the Caserma (English: Barrack) of Via Emilia Pavese were the dormitories for the Todt workers.

The San Damiano airbase near the city was also under German control (even if it was under German control before the Armistice). There were also the Train Station, the bridges, the arsenal and the most important company of the city, the Officine Massarenti, specialized in the extraction of the little oil found in the Piacenza countryside.

The Repubblica Sociale Italiana forces in the city were composed of the 83ª Legione della Milizia (English: 83rd Militia Legion) and the Corpo dei Carabinieri Reali (English: Corps of the Royal Carabinieri) that were stationed in Palazzo Farnese in Piazza Cittadella.

In the Piazza Cittadella barracks, there were also other RSI units, such as the Compagnia della Morte (English: Company of Death) under Major Ambrogio Gianneschi’s command. Units of the 4ª Divisione Alpina ‘Monterosa’ (English: 4th Alpine Division) and the 3ª Divisione di Fanteria di Marina ‘San Marco’ (English: 3rd Marine Infantry Division) were headquartered in Piacenza’s main square during their deployment in the region.

The 3ª Compagnia Arditi and 4ª Compagnia Mista (English: 3rd Arditi Company and 4th Mixed Company) of the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ were headquartered in the city after January 1945. The Distaccamento Operativo di Piacenza (English: Operative Detachment of Piacenza), with 7 officers, 113 militiamen, one M15/42 medium tank, one L6/40 light tank, three L3 light tanks, 2 AB41 armored cars, two APCs, 13 motorbikes, a staff car and two trucks was also stationed there.

A small unit of the Xª Flottiglia MAS, units of the Legione Autonoma Mobile ‘Ettore Muti’ (English: Autonomous Mobile Legion) and finally the Battaglione ‘Vendetta’ and Battaglione ‘Debica’ assigned to the Kampfgruppe Binz of Colonel Franz Binz belonging to the 29. Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS ‘Italia’ had its headquarters in the city during its deployment in the province.

In August 1944, the XXVIIIª Brigata Nera (English: 28th Black Brigade) was named after Giuseppe ‘Pippo’ Astorri (born 3rd March 1901 and deceased on 26 July 1944). He was a militiaman of the 630ª Compagnia Ordine Pubblico killed during an anti-partisan operation in Chiosi di Bobbiano, 35 km south of Piacenza. The unit had, on 14 January 1945, a total of 17 officers, 42 NCOs and 182 militiamen and auxiliaries divided into two companies. It was equipped with three medium trucks, a light truck, a staff car and a Lancia 3Ro armored truck probably received from another GNR unit. In January 1945, the Black Brigade was equipped with 3 medium machine guns, 6 light machine guns and 220 rifles.

The XXXVIª Brigata Nera ‘Benito Mussolini’ (English: 36th Black Brigade), founded on 22 June 1944 in Lucca, was extensively employed in the Piacenza province. After the Allied offensives south of Florence, Lucca was evacuated on 4 July 1944. The Black Brigade retreated first to Bagni di Lucca, then to other locations until November 1944, when it was deployed in Piacenza. In December 1944, it was composed of 137 officers, NCOs, militiamen and auxiliaries. Its equipment was composed of an improvised armored truck: a Lancia 3Ro Blindato with an armored trailer, a Lancia 1500 Berlina Semiblindata civil car and some other medium trucks. The XXXVIª Brigata Nera was renamed ‘Natale Piacentini’ in December 1944, after the death of the militiaman on 24 November 1944.

In the enormous Caserma Generale Antonio Cantore, on an area of 22,200 m² in Stradone Farnese 35, the 630ª Comando Provinciale della Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana (English: 630th National Republican Guard’s Provincial Command) was headquartered, with a total of more than 500 militiamen, police officers and auxiliaries assigned to 42 garrisons in the Piacenza province. In Summer 1944, this number was diminished due partisan attacks to 22 garrisons and 527 members.

Under direct control of the 630ª Comando Provinciale della GNR was the 630ª Compagnia Ordine Pubblico, stationed in the Caserma Generale Antonio Cantore and the Caserma Paride Biselli of Via Beverora 54.

The 630ª Compagnia OP was commanded by Captain Mayer, who had served in the Balkans for two years before the Armistice, learning how to counter Yugoslav partisans. When he became commander of this GNR unit, he exploited his knowledge of anti-guerrilla warfare to counter the Italian partisans.

In fact, as part of the important task of infantry transport and anti-partisan operations, the improvised armored vehicles of the unit effectively carried out convoy escort missions and supply missions to isolated garrisons in the Piacenza province. They also counterattacked the partisans during the sieges of some isolated garrisons, permitting the soldiers to maintain the positions or, in the worst cases, open a breach in the partisan line, allowing the besieged fascists to escape.

This was done also with Regio Esercito improvised armored trucks used in the Balkans before the Armistice, such as the Renault ADR Blindato, from which Captain Mayer probably took inspiration.

The first vehicle that Cpt. Mayer’s attempt to transform into an Armored Personnel Carrier (APC) was an old Ceirano 47CM produced by Giovanni Ceirano Fabbrica Automobili (English: Giovanni Ceirano Car Factory) company after 1927.

It was not an easy task. In fact, the arsenal now worked almost exclusively for German orders and Mayer had to insist with the German command, which in the end allowed some workers to work on the armor of the truck.

It is unknown the exact number and the model of trucks that the company deployed in early 1944, but it is logical to suppose that the vehicle was chosen for its obsolescence as a transport truck. In fact, it had a maximum speed on road, empty, of 40 km/h and a limited payload.

The vehicle was armored by the Arsenale di Piacenza and delivered to the unit in April 1944 and commonly called Ceirano 47CM Blindato. The armored vehicles of the 630ª Compagnia Ordine Pubblico were all assigned to the Sezione Autoblindo (English: Armored Car Section).

The Ceirano 47CM Blindato could transport 12 fully equipped soldiers plus driver and vehicle commander and had slits from which the soldiers transported could open fire with personal weapons. It was extensively used by the 630ª Compagnia Ordine Pubblico in anti-partisan operations in the Piacenza countryside.

Cpt. Mayer had also ordered a light armored vehicle, based on the Guzzi Ercole 500 three-wheeled motorbike. This particular vehicle was totally armored and used to patrol the city’s roads after curfew. A Guzzi 500 liaison motorbike was equipped with a frontal armored shield and a Breda Modello 1930 light machine gun.

According to the testimony of a veteran, reported in the book ‘…Come il Diamante! I Carristi Italiani 1943-’45’ written by Sergio Corbatti and Marco Nava, the unit had another APC, probably on a Lancia 3Ro heavy-duty truck chassis. Giorgio Cassinari, in the book ‘Piacenza nella Resistenza’, also claims the presence of a Lancia 3Ro with armored plates used by the unit. Unfortunately, no iconographic sources exist of these vehicles.

Design

FIAT 666N

The FIAT 666N (N for Nafta – Diesel), produced by Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino or FIAT (English: Italian Automobiles Factory, Turin), was the first cab-over-engine heavy truck of the company, which usually specialized in producing conventional-cab trucks.

The Kingdom of Italy was forced in 1937 to pass a law that specified the main characteristics required for all civilian or military trucks that were produced. This was done for three main reasons:

• Firstly, Italy was a rapidly growing nation with numerous companies producing dozens of different models of trucks. A standardization would lead companies to produce vehicles that were similar to each other and with common parts, increasing the production capacity.
• Secondly, there was also the problem of embargoes placed on Italy and the policy of autarky, or the aspiration of Italian leaders to be economically independent from foreign countries. Unified truck standards would certainly help to avoid wasting resources.
• Thirdly, and probably the most important reason, was the fact that, in case of war, civilian trucks could be requisitioned for war needs.

The third reason however, brought an obvious problem. Despite the excellent characteristics of the trucks, many Italian drivers were skeptical about purchasing the Autocarri Unificati, since the Regio Esercito could requisition them for military purposes at any time. The term Autocarri Unificati (English: Unified Trucks) was the name by which these particular vehicles built under the new rules were called.

With Regio Decreto (English: Royal Decree) N° 1809 of 14 July 1937, the so-called Autocarri Unificati were born. For heavy trucks, the maximum weight was not to exceed 12,000 kg, of which at least 6,000 kg had to be payload, with a minimum road speed of 45 km/h.

As for light trucks, the ground clearance was to be at least 200 mm, the maximum truck weight was to be 4,000 kg, and the payload 3,000 kg.

The FIAT 666N was a heavy-duty truck. The civilian version was developed in 1938 under the Regio Decreto N° 1809 rules. Its prototype was ready at the end of 1938 and was presented to Benito Mussolini on 15 May 1939, on the occasion of the inauguration of the FIAT Mirafiori plant in Turin.

This factory building covered 300,000 m² on an area of over one million square meters, with a total of 22,000 workers on several shifts. All 50,000 FIAT workers of Turin were present for Mirafiori’s inauguration. The AB40 prototypes were also presented then.

The military version, the FIAT 666NM (NM for Nafta Militare – Diesel; Military), was presented to the Centro Studi della Motorizzazione (English: Center for Motorization Studies), the Italian department which would examine new vehicles, for evaluation on 19 September 1940.

It differed from the civilian version through the addition of acetylene headlights, a bulb horn, support for rifles on the cab’s roof and manually operated turn signals on the sides of the windscreen. The first military order for 1,000 FIAT 666NM trucks was issued on 10 January 1941. Another 1,500 were ordered on 23 July 1941, 1,000 on 5 March 1942, and 700 on 16 June 1943.

In total, about 8,000 FIAT 666s left the assembly lines of the Mirafiori plant, including the post-war direct-injection 666N7 and FIAT 665NM 4×4 versions.

The Regia Aeronautica (English: Royal Air Force) ordered 796 trucks on 23rd October 1941. This truck was used on the Eastern Front, in North Africa, in Italy, and in the Balkans.

After the Armistice of 8th September 1943, between November 1943 and December 1944, 79 FIAT 666NMs and 2 FIAT 665NMs were delivered to the Wehrmacht.

The FIAT 666 was produced in a wide range of variants, such as standard truck and fuel carrier for civilian service, while for military service, recovery trucks, fuel and water carriers, mobile workshops, petrol engine variants, and many others were produced.

Engine and Suspension

Propulsion was provided by a FIAT Tipo 366 6-cylinder in-line diesel engine. It had overhead valves, with a displacement of 9,365 cm³ and FIAT-produced injectors. The maximum output power was 110 hp at 2,000 rpm on the civil FIAT 666N, the FIAT 666NM for the Regia Aeronautica, and on the FIAT 665NM. The maximum output power on the Regio Esercito’s FIAT 666NM was limited to delivering 95 hp (70.84 Kw) at 1,700 rpm. The Ricardo type direct-injection chamber created lots of problems in the cold Russian steppes, which forced the crews to mix the diesel fuel with gasoline in order to allow the engine to start.

The maximum speed on-road was 48.3 km/h (30 mph) for the power-limited FIAT 666NM, 56.8 km/h for the FIAT 666N and FIAT 666NM and 57 km/h for the FIAT 665 NM. The fuel was kept in a 135 liter tank (255 liters for the FIAT 665NM) located on the right side of the chassis, which offered a 750 km on-road range (465 km for the FIAT 666N).

A FIAT 6-75-2510 diaphragm pump then pumped the fuel into a 5.5-liter tank located behind the cab’s dashboard. This ensured trouble-free feeding thanks to a gravity injection pump. The lubricant oil tank had a capacity of 12 liters, while the water-cooling tank had a capacity of 50 liters.

Air was drawn through two filters mounted at the back of the engine. Up until engine number 000530, they used cartridge filters, after which they were replaced with oil bath filters.

As on the FIAT 626 medium truck, the engine could be extracted through the cab’s front after the removal of the grille thanks to rollers mounted on the two supports of the engine, rolling on guides fixed to the frame.

Brakes and Electric Systems

The single dry plate clutch was connected to the gearbox via a cardan shaft. This could be removed independently of the gearbox and engine simply by removing the rear casing. This meant that maintenance and disassembly were easier.

The transmission, thanks to the reductor, had eight gears and two reverse gears. The drum brakes were hydraulic and had a pedal-operated air brake booster. The compressed air tank, with a capacity of 55 liters, was located on the left of the frame. It had a pressure of 5.5 bar. On the NM version, the rear axle was equipped with a differential.

There was a 12-volt electrical circuit used to power the headlights and dashboard, and a 24-volt circuit for starting the engine. The two 12V Magneti Marelli batteries were housed in a box on the left side of the chassis, behind the air tank.

Structure

The cargo bay measured 4.75 meters long by 2.20 meters wide, with a height of 600 mm on the civilian version and 650 mm on the military version. It was designed to carry up to 6 tonnes of cargo but could carry, without much difficulty, an L6/40 light tank (weighing 6.84 tonnes).

The cab had the steering wheel and the driver on the right, while the vehicle’s commander was placed on the left. The cab’s doors opened backwards. Due to the slow production rates, some early FIAT 666NMs were equipped with civilian FIAT 666N cabs.

In spite of its respectable dimensions and its large load capacity, the FIAT 666 heavy-duty truck, with a chassis weight of 1 tonne and about 5 tonnes of additional structure weight, for a total weight of 6 tonnes in the FIAT 666NM variant and 7.2 tonnes in the FIAT 665NM version, could travel at more than 56 km/h with a 12 tonne trailer attached. Fully loaded, it could climb 26º slopes. Thanks to its short wheelbase and cab layout, it was comfortable traveling on mountain roads.

The FIAT 666NM had a wheel rim size of 20 x 8” (50.8 x 20.32 cm). Like the other vehicles, it could use a wide variety of tires developed and produced by the Pirelli company in Milan.

It was considered a short range heavy duty truck. In fact, the companies that bodyworked the chassis never used long cabs with berths inside. The only FIAT vehicle with berths was the FIAT 634N, the first truck in Europe with the possibility to be equipped with two or three berths. As an example, the second company to provide a berth in the cabin was Renault with its three-axle Renault AFKD, with a load capacity of 10 tonnes, which entered service only in 1936. The third was Lancia with the Lancia 3Ro in 1938.

Armored Superstructure, Turret and Internal Structure

The FIAT 666N modifications were carried out by the Arsenale di Piacenza in 1944. Captain Mayer had decided to modify another vehicle after the creation of the XXVIIIª Brigata Nera ‘Pippo Astorri’ (English: 28th Black Brigade) on 25th April 1944. This was because, with the new brigade, the militiamen needed more armored vehicles to support their operations.

Another company that participated in the development of the Arsenale di Piacenza was Officine Carenzi, which carried out the majority of the modifications. It was a small company founded by Giuseppe Carenzi in 1929, specialized in bodyworks for trucks with fuel tanks and the production of cargo trailers. This company, with a few hundred workers, also started the production of ballistic armor plates during the war.

The turret was developed by a German tank crew officer that was assigned by the German command to the Officine Massarenti of Piacenza. His task was to design some rotating coastal cannon platforms. Finishing his work, he started to supervise the work of the company workers, trying to delay his return to the front lines. When the cannon platforms project was quite ready, he tried to delay his return, starting to work on the armored 360° traversing turret for the FIAT 666N. However, it is unclear if he voluntarily proposed himself to design the turret or if it was the Italian command that asked him to work on this project.

A standard FIAT 666N used by Piacenza’s garbage company was requisitioned. This is why it received the nickname ‘Tullòn ‘dla Vërdura’, Piacenza dialect for ‘Vegetable Garbage Can’. The cab and cargo bay were removed, leaving only the chassis, powerpack, seats, and probably the dashboard.

Some armor plates were forged by the Officine Carenzi but, to speed up the production and to save money, Arsenale di Piacenza provided some cannon shields that were welded onto the structure to the small company.

In the books ‘Siamo Ribelli, Storie e Canzoni della Resistenza’ written by Italian author Ermanno Maianai and ‘Italia 43-45, I Blindati di Circostanza della Guerra Civile’ written by Paolo Crippa, it is claimed that the thickness of the armored plates of the FIAT 666N Blindato was 9 mm.

The book ‘…Come il Diamante! I Carristi Italiani 1943-’45’ claims that the armored plates of the armored car were enough to protect the vehicle against 20 mm rounds, becoming virtually invulnerable to the partisan’s light weapons.

It apparently could withstand the 12.7 mm rounds. In fact, on one occasion, the vehicle was hit by several heavy machine bursts and only the radiator and the wheels were damaged, permitting the vehicle to return to Piacenza for repairs.

On the vehicle’s sides were four loopholes through which the crew could see the battlefield and use small arms, such as SMGs and rifles. Two cylindrical supports were also mounted on each side. These were mounted after the delivery, during a visit to the Arsenale di Piacenza. These supports were taken from the Arsenale di Piacenza, which also produced supports and armored pieces for bunkers, or from the Todt Organization which had the task of building bunkers on the Italian peninsula.

These particular supports were probably used for light and medium machine guns. They guaranteed more protection and a higher traverse than the loopholes. Ermanno Maianai also claims that the vehicle had loopholes on the rear side.

The armored driving compartment was connected to the central fighting compartment and the driver and vehicle commander could enter the vehicle through two armored doors that opened forward, as on other vehicles, or through the rear armored door. The forward opening doors guaranteed more protection to the crew in case of an emergency exit from the vehicle.

The turret was cylindrical, with a 360° traverse an unknown depression and elevation. It probably could be elevated enough to engage flying targets, like the Lancia 3Ro produced a few months after.

The main armament was a Breda heavy machine gun of aeronautical origin, probably recovered from Arsenale di Piacenza. Due to the homemade design and production, the vehicle lacked a coaxial machine gun.

The rear of the vehicle had an armored door for access to the central fighting compartment. At least 8 fully equipped militiamen could be transported on the rear of the vehicle, but this number was probably higher.

As an example, the Lancia 3Ro Blindato of the XXXVIª Brigata Nera ‘Natale Piacentini’ of Piacenza could transport at least 8 militiamen plus its crew of 7 soldiers. The FIAT 666N Blindato probably had a crew composed of four soldiers; the commander was placed on the left of the armored cab while the driver was on the right. The front of the armored car was well angled to deflect enemy bullets. The two crew members placed in the driving compartment had two openable loopholes for driving and surveying the battlefield.

The rest of the crew was composed of a gunner that manned the heavy machine gun in the turret and probably a loader that handed the magazines to the gunner seated in the turret and to the machine gunner on the sides.

For the militiamen transported in the vehicle, some wooden benches were probably placed along the sides. Four of them operated the lateral machine guns while four more could open fire through the loopholes.

The vehicle was painted in a three tone-camouflage, the most common painted by the RSI forces called Continentale (English: Continental). It had a Kaki Sahariano base with reddish-brown and dark green spots painted on it. Unfortunately, from the only photo available, it is impossible to identify numbers or symbols painted on the sides. In fact, many improvised armored vehicles used by Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana received the symbols of the cities where they were created on the sides. In the case of Piacenza, the symbol was a female wolf.

An interesting method used by the Repubblica Sociale Italiana’ soldiers to empathize with the resistance of their improvised armored cars was to paint a white ring around bullet hits. Even if the existing photo of the vehicle was taken in August 1944, less than a month after the delivery, as many as 6 or 7 rings are clearly visible.

Armament

The main armament of the FIAT 666N Blindato was a 12.7 x 81 SR mm Breda-SAFAT developed by Società Italiana Ernesto Breda per Costruzioni Meccaniche of Brescia and produced in collaboration with SAFAT or Società Anonima Fabbrica Armi Torino (English: Anonymous Company Arms Factory Turin).

It was developed as an aeronautical heavy machine gun from the 7,7 × 56 mm R (Italian designation for the .303 British) FIAT Modello 1928 medium machine gun but rechambered for the 12.7 x 81 SR mm cartridge. After the First World War, FIAT began the development of new light, squad, heavy and aeronautical machine guns. The problem is that FIAT was a company that produced motor vehicles, its technicians were mechanics, not gunsmiths, so the production of machine guns was a burden for it. On 25 March 1930 FIAT sold to Breda all the patents and the SAFAT factory of Corso Dante 35 in Turin.

It was accepted into service after tests in 1935 and was produced until the end of the war by Breda, SAFAT and other small arms factories.

It had a total weight of 29 kg, 5 kg less than the 12.7 mm FIAT machine gun. The Breda-SAFAT had a rate of fire of 700 rounds per minute and its muzzle velocity was 765 m/s with standard bullets.

In addition to the classic full metal jacket bullet, the weapon could fire tracer, perforating, explosive-incendiary, and explosive-incendiary-tracer (or multi-effect) rounds.

The side machine gun models are unknown. In the only existing photo, the machine guns are not mounted, so it is impossible to distinguish their type. It was probably not the Breda Modello 1930 light machine gun. It was the only light support machine gun used by the Italian soldiers and was universally known for being an unreliable machine gun.

The two medium machine guns that were plausibly used were the Mitragliatrice Breda Modello 1937 (English: Breda Model 1937 Machine Gun) and Breda Modello 1938, also used on the similar Lancia 3Ro Blindato.

These were two gas operated machine guns developed by Società Italiana Ernesto Breda per Costruzioni Meccaniche. The Modello 1937 was developed in 1937 as a medium machine gun, while the Modello 1938 was developed in 1938 as a medium machine gun but with modifications to be used on armored vehicles.

They were powerful weapons adopted by the Regio Esercito as a company or battalion supporting heavy machine guns. The Modello 1937 version was the heaviest rifle-caliber machine gun of the Second World War, with a weight of 19.4 kg, while the Modello 1938 weighed 15.4 kg due to the modifications.

The practical rate of fire of the Modello 1937 was about 200-250 rounds per minute and was considered a bit low. The machine gun was fed by 20-round rigid strips loaded from the left side. After firing, instead of ejecting the spent casings like all firearms, the Modello 1937 reinserted them into the rigid strip to facilitate the recovery of reusable spent casings. The Modello 1938 had a practical rate of fire of 350 rounds per minute and was fed by 24-round top curved magazines.

Apart from the different feeding types, the two machine guns had different barrel lengths, 740 mm for the Modello 1937 and 575 mm for the Modello 1938. Another difference was the presence of a pistol-type grip.

The machine guns shot 8 x 59 mm RB cartridges developed by Breda exclusively for them. The 8 mm Breda had a muzzle velocity between 790 m/s and 800 m/s, depending on the round type. The armor-piercing rounds penetrated 11 mm of non-ballistic steel angled to 90° at 100 meters. Unfortunately, the quantity of ammunition transported in the vehicle is unknown and would have largely depended on availability.

Operational use

The ‘Tullòn ‘dla Vërdura’ was surely deployed after August 1944 by the 630ª Compagnia Ordine Pubblico in the flatland area between Fiorenzuola and Castell’Arquato, the south east countryside of Piacenza. This armored behemoth could operate more easily on narrow flat country roads than on hilly roads among vineyards and other crops that characterized the rest of Piacenza’s countryside.

On 3rd August 1944, around 9:00 pm, numerous partisans attacked two different ammunition depots in San Giuseppe and Galleana villages in the suburb of Piacenza. The two garnisons held the line until 11:30 pm, when one of the armored cars of the 630ª Compagnia OP and a company-sized German and Italian force arrived to counterattack, putting the partisans on the run.

On one occasion, the vehicle, during a rescue mission from Piacenza to Fiorenzuola in August 1944, was stopped by 5 or 6 civilians in the village of Fontanafredda. Some hours before, a civilian truck loaded with salt from Genoa was stopped by a partisan car that blocked the street and ordered the men to exit the vehicle. The partisans then went back to the street toward San Protaso with the truck in front of the car.

The fascists decided to change their mission and started a chase with the armored truck. Despite the size of the vehicle, they managed to reach the two partisan vehicles before they reached the village of San Protaso. Some warning bursts were fired from the armored truck. The partisans, unprepared to combat enemy forces, abandoned the vehicles and ran the fields near the street. The fascists recovered the truck, which was returned to the Genoese civilians, while the car was transported to Piacenza and became the staff car of the Perfetto of Piacenza, Alberto Graziani.

During the same days, some militiamen of the GNR of Rivergaro were captured by the partisans and shot on 10th August 1944 near Agazzano, 17 km southwest of Piacenza. The FIAT 666N Blindato was deployed in a liaison mission the day after the shooting to transport the coffins of the eight soldiers to Piacenza.

On 30th August 1944, the soldiers of the XXVIIIª Brigata Nera ‘Pippo Astorri’, along with elements of the Compagnia ‘Baragiotta-Salines’ of the Legione Autonoma Mobile ‘Ettore Muti’ of Milan and an armored car of the 630ª Compagnia OP (model not specified) were engaged in an anti-partisan operation in the sector of Travo in Val Trebbia. While crossing a bridge in Rivergaro, the militiamen of the brigade and the Arditi of the ‘Muti’ were attacked by partisans, who blew up the bridge. The fascist column, taken by surprise and under heavy fire, managed to disengage and return to Piacenza without suffering any losses.

The operation was retried the following day. On this occasion, the Fascist column passed through the village of Piozzano, where it was again attacked by large enemy forces. In the clash that followed, the partisans had eight losses, among which a former Regio Esercito soldier and a former Carabiniere, were captured and shot immediately after the clash. The fascists suffered two deaths among the legionaries of the black brigade, while the Arditi of the ‘Muti’ had one dead and one wounded.

On 10th September 1944, the Provincial Command of the Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana of Piacenza planned an anti-partisan operation in the town of Castel San Giovanni and surrounding areas.

The armored car section of the 630ª Compagnia Ordine Pubblico with an armored car of an unknown model, 1 officer and 12 men participated. Due to the number of militiamen deployed, it is impossible to identify which model of armored car was used in the action. The Ceirano 47CM Blindato could transport 12 soldiers and 2 crew members, but the FIAT 666N Blindato could transport a similar number of soldiers: 4 crew members and at least 8 fully equipped soldiers.

In the anti-partisan operation, two platoons of the Legione Autonoma Mobile ‘Ettore Muti’ with 1 officer and 50 soldiers, an operational nucleus of the Ufficio Politico Investigativo (English: Political Investigation Office) of the Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana of Piacenza, with 1 officer and 10 police officers, and 2 officers and 50 soldiers of the XXVIIIª Brigata Nera ‘Pippo Astorri’ were also deployed.

During the action, the Arditi of the Legione Autonoma Mobile ‘Ettore Muti’ captured a partisan, who was immediately shoot in the main square of Castel San Giovanni. At the same time, the armored car intercepted a group of partisans on a road, where they were changing a pierced tire on a car. The fascists opened fire, killing one partisan and dispersing the others. The fascists recovered many weapons and ammunition, including some Sten submachine guns that were immediately reused by the militiamen. During the action, about twenty suspects were also stopped and were transported to Piacenza for interrogation. In Castel San Giovanni, a small garrison of the black brigade of Piacenza was constituted. It had about fifty militiamen under the orders of Lieutenant Angelo Montesissa.

In the so called Battle of Ponte dell’Olio (1st October – 6th October 1944), numerous partisan forces attacked the city garrison composed of 65 Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana militiamen and 7 XXVIIIª Brigata Nera ‘Pippo Astorri’ soldiers.

The Ceirano 47CM Blindato and the FIAT 666N Blindato were deployed. Nothing is known about the Ceirano’s service, while the other armored behemoth of the 630ª Compagnia Ordine Pubblico was deployed many times to force the partisan roadblock on the street between Piacenza and Ponte dell’Olio, 23 km South of Piacenza, to deliver food and ammunition to the besieged fascists.

In the first two days of battle, it forced the roadblock at 2:00 pm on 1st October. The fascists tried to pass at 6:00 pm again, but the partisans, positioned above the small road, threw hand grenades, Molotov cocktails and improvised explosive devices at the vehicle, which was forced to give up.

On 3rd October, the FIAT 666N Blindato began the supply mission at dawn. With the favor of darkness and fog, it managed to deliver food and ammunition to the besieged garrison. On the road to Ponte dell’Olio, the partisans had dug holes and placed mines to stop the advance of the enormous armored car.

The fascist, noticing the mined road, tried to clear it with two oxen pulling a harrow, but the system did not work and two militiamen detonated the mines by throwing hand grenades onto the road. The armored truck arrived at the garrison without other problems.

On the way back, when the FIAT 666N Blindato went out of the village, crossing the bridge over the river Nure, it was ambushed. The partisans used a 12.7 mm heavy machine gun, damaging the radiator and piercing the tires, temporarily stopping it on the bridge.

After a short time, the engine restarted and the armored behemoth slowly restarted its way to Piacenza.

The Officine Carenzi of Piacenza repaired the vehicle, replacing the radiator and the wheel rims, damaged by the weight of the vehicle that had traveled several kilometers with pierced tires.

The work of the Officine Carenzi was excellent and the vehicle was operational again in no more than a couple of days. In fact, on 6th October 1944, it participated in the final fascist counterattack.

The Repubblica Sociale Italiana’s forces were composed of about 160 militiamen of the 630ª Compagnia Ordine Pubblico, of XXVIIIª Brigata Nera ‘Pippo Astorri’ militiamen and vehicles of the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’. The FIAT 666N Blindato, an L6/40 light reconnaissance tank, an autoprotetta (probably a SPA-Viberti AS43 Autoprotetta), two Škoda 7.5 cm Vz. 1915 guns (in Italy know as Obici da 75/13 Modello 1915), a 47 mm Cannone da 47/32 and two mortars took part in the action.

After a fight that put the partisans on the run, the fascists, divided into two different columns, entered the village, but too late. The local secretary of the Partito Fascista Repubblicano (English: Republican Fascist Party) had decided to surrender to the partisans the day before, on 5th October, fearing that the partisans might retaliate against the civilians.

All the garrison members (apart from three members of the black brigade that escaped) were taken prisoner and transported to a partisan prison camp.

On 21st October 1944, an armored car of unknown model was deployed by some elements of the ‘Pippo Astorri’ Black Brigade in retaliation for a partisan ambush on the previous day. The fascists probably attacked on their own initiative and killed the owner of the house from which the partisans opened fire the day before. This was an old lady and they then stole some food from her house.

On 2nd November 1944, the Provincial Command of the Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana of Piacenza organized a vast anti-partisan operation in the area between the Strada Statale 9, usually called ‘Via Emilia’ because it was built on the old Roman-era road, the Po River and the Nure and Chiavenna streams.

The Repubblica Sociale Italiana units that took part in the operation were the 630ª Compagnia Ordine Pubblico with 3 officers and 60 militiamen, the Sezione Autoblindo of the same unit with an armored car, 1 officer and 9 men, a squad of the Compagnia della Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana Territoriale (Eng: Company of the Territoriale National Republican Guard) with 1 officer and 15 legionnaires, some units of the two companies of the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ with a tank and 3 soldiers and a squad of the Ufficio Politico Investigativo of the GNR with 1 officer and 10 police officers.

The Esercito Nazionale Repubblicano also took part in the action with 4 officers and 50 soldiers and one of the two companies of the XXVIIIª Brigata Nera ‘Pippo Astorri’ with 4 officers and 70 militias. The operation, which ended the same day, was a total failure. The soldiers managed to kill only one partisan and wounded a second one during a whole day of patrols in a territory under partisan control. The fascist forces also stopped several civilians who had taken refuge in the mountains to escape compulsory enlistment in the RSI armies or to escape forced enlistment as workers in wartime factories.

During the vast anti-guerrilla operation, code-named Operation Heygendorf, which took place in the last ten days of November in the Apennines, between the provinces of Piacenza, Pavia and Genoa, a large nucleus of the Piacenza’s black brigade was deployed under the orders of Vice Commander Barera, who was part of the Gruppo di Combattimento Piacenza (English: Piacenza’s Combat Group), under the orders of Major Kraus, together with the Black Brigade of Lucca and the 630ª Compagnia Ordine Pubblico. The soldiers were supported by an armored vehicle of the Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana.

This heterogeneous force occupied Rivergaro on 24th November 1944, despite a violent barrage of mortars and 47 mm Cannoni da 47/32 placed on the left bank of the Trebbia river that caused the wounding of a single soldier.

From Rivergaro, the Gruppo di Combattimento Piacenza then went up the Trebbia Valley where almost all the towns in the area in the hands of the partisans were reoccupied and where two hundred Italian and German soldiers, prisoners of the partisan brigades, were also freed.

After 14th January 1945, the 630ª Compagnia Ordine Pubblico was aggregated for a few weeks to the Gruppo di Combattimento ‘Bicci’, composed of elements of the XIVª Brigata Nera ‘Alberto Alfieri’ (English: 14th Black Brigade) of Voghera, and the Sicherheitsabteilung (English: Security Unit), an Italian police unit with German name at the command of the German 162. Infanterie-Division ‘Turkistan’. The Gruppo di Combattimento ‘Bicci’ stormed the area of Stradella in the Oltrepò Pavese region.

On 11th March 1945, the Ceirano 47CM Blindato was damaged during an air attack and then captured by the partisans.

The FIAT 666N Blindato was deployed until April 1945 when, on an unclear day, the vehicle was attacked by an Allied aircraft.

While the driver was trying to avoid the aerial attack, the vehicle skidded and ended up with its wheels in a ditch on the side of the ground, tipping over. Trying to get back on the road, the vehicle was “damaged beyond repair”. The suspension or an axle shaft had probably broken.

Conclusion

Between summer 1944 and late 1944, the FIAT 666N Blindato was virtually unstoppable against the partisans, causing numerous losses to the Italian patriots that tried to free the Italian peninsula. Despite its weight and size, it was a fairly maneuverable vehicle and faster than a tank. Its armor plates were thick enough to protect some parts of the vehicle from heavy machine-gun fire, protecting the crew inside.

It was also thanks to this vehicle that the fascists were able to impose themselves in the Piacenza area, avoiding being overwhelmed by the partisans before April 1945.
Obviously, in spite of its merits, the improvised armored car on a FIAT chassis was not without its faults. Probably because of the weight of the armored superstructure and the load it carried, it was constantly under stress, causing the mechanical parts to wear out more quickly. In spite of this, on 3rd October 1944, it was able to run about 20 km on its way back to Piacenza for the necessary repairs.

At the end of April 1945, the partisan units attacked the city, forcing the last Nazi-Fascist units to flee towards the north. Some members of the various fascist units mentioned managed to cross the Po River, while others were taken prisoner.

After the surrender of the fascist forces, the partisans drew up a list of drivers and commanders of the improvised armored cars and went to look for them in the prison camps in the provinces of Piacenza and Lodi.

Four were found, taken, brought to Piacenza and shot in revenge for all the comrades killed. The commander of the 630ª Compagnia Ordine Pubblico, Captain Mayer, managed to disappear.

FIAT 666N Blindato Specification
Size (L-W-H)	~ 8 x ~ 2.4 x ~ 4 m
Weight, battle ready	approximately ~ 12 tonnes
Crew	4 (commander, driver, gunner and loader) + probably 6 or more militiamen
Engine	FIAT Tipo 366 9,365 cm³, 95 hp at 1,700 rpm with 135 liter tank
Speed	~ 35 km/h
Range	~ 400 km
Armament	a 12.7 mm Breda-SAFAT and 4 medium machine guns
Armor	not specified
Production	one converted from pre-existing vehicle

Sources

Comuni e loro Popolazione ai Censimenti dal 1861 al 1951 – Istituto Centrale di Statistica della Repubblica Italiana – E-book

Piacenza nella Resistenza – Giorgio Cassinari – TEP Edizioni, 2004

Le forze armate della RSI 1943-1945 – Luca Stefano Cristini – Soldiershop Publishing, Soldiers & Weapons 022, September 2016

resistenzamappe.it

gracpiacenza.com

…Come il Diamante! I Carristi Italiani 1943-’45 – Sergio Corbatti and Marco Nava – Laran Editions, May 2008

Italia 43-45, I Blindati di Circostanza della Guerra Civile – Paolo Crippa – Tankmaster Special. Italian and English editions Volume 4, July 2014

36^ Brigata Nera “Natale Piacentini”: Una Documentazione – Leonardo Sandri – E-book

28^ Brigata Nera “Pippo Astorri”: una Documentazione – Leonardo Sandri – E-book

Le Brigate Nere: Una Documentazione Struttura – Organigrammi – Operazioni 2^ Edizione – Leonardo Sandri – E-book

Gli Autoveicoli tattici e logistici del Regio Esercito Italiano fino al 1943, Tomo Primo and Tomo Secondo – Nicola Pignato and Filippo Cappellano – Ufficio Storico dello Stato Maggiore dell’Esercito, 2005

Gli Autoveicoli del Regio Esercito nella Seconda Guerra Mondiale – Nicola Pignato – Storia Militare, December 1997

Ruote in divisa, I veicoli militari italiani 1900-1987 – Brizio Pignacca – Giorgio Nada Editore, 1989

Siamo Ribelli, Storie e Canzoni della Resistenza – Ermanno Maianai – Selene Edizioni, 2007

Le armi della fanteria italiana 1919-1945 – Nicola Pignato and Filippo Cappellano – Storia Militare, 2008

Italian Social Republic (1944-1945)
Improvised Armored Truck – 1 Converted

An improvised armored truck, built on an unknown chassis and used by the 1ª Brigata Nera ‘Ather Capelli’ (English: 1st Black Brigade) of the Repubblica Sociale Italiana or RSI (English: Italian Social Republic) after November 1944 was one of the dozens of armored vehicles produced by the RSI units.

Nothing is known about the original chassis or its service, and only two photos of the vehicle exist.

The Repubblicana Sociale Italiana creation and its situation

After the end of the North African Campaign with the defeat of the Axis troops in May 1943, the popular discontent with Fascism in Italy increased. The King of Italy, Vittorio Emanuele III, took the opportunity to regain power.

With the collaboration of some fascist generals, Benito Mussolini, the dictator of Italy, was deposed, and a Monarchist government was created, which almost immediately tried to organize an armistice with the Allied powers.

On 8th September 1943, the signing of the armistice between the Kingdom of Italy and the Allied powers was made public, to the great surprise of the Italian soldiers. They were left completely unaware of the situation.

The Germans launched Fall Achse (English: Operation Axis), which lasted from the 8th of September to the 23rd of September 1943, occupying all the territories under Italian control in Italy, including the northern and central part of the Italian peninsula in the hands of the Axis forces.

Mussolini was freed from a secret prison on 12th September 1943 by a task force of Fallschirmjäger and transferred to Germany. There, he met Adolf Hitler and decided to found a new republic in the Italian territories not yet occupied by the Allies.

On 23rd September 1943, Mussolini returned to Italy, founding the new Repubblica Sociale Italiana with two new military corps, the Esercito Nazionale Repubblicano (English: National Republican Army) and the Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana (English: National Republican Guard), its military police.

Apart from some well-equipped and trained units, most of the Italian military forces were composed of poorly trained and equipped soldiers, mainly used by the Axis command in anti-partisan operations or to support German troops on Italian soil.

The Black Brigades

The necessity of small units located in the small cities of Italy as garrisons to stop partisan formations was great. To cover this, Alessandro Pavolini, the secretary of the Partito Fascista Repubblicano (English: National Fascist Party), proposed the creation of a paramilitary corp at the dependencies of the Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana to the Italian dictator, the so-called Brigate Nere (English: Black Brigades).

The reason for the constitution of the Black Brigades was to preserve the life and property of the republican fascists. Additionally, to constitute auxiliary units, well-rooted in the territory where they operated (most of the members were born and lived in the cities where they operated) used in the fight against the partisans.

During their existence, the Black Brigades were also used to help bigger units in anti-partisan operations, maintain public order in the cities and prevent partisan sabotage against important city targets.

On 26 June 1944, Mussolini approved the Decreto Legislativo Numero 446-XXII (English: legislative decree no. 446-22), which Pavolini had proposed. The Roman numeral XXII signified 1944 documentation because it was the 22nd year of the fascist government in Italy.

This order constituted the Corpo Ausiliario delle Squadre d’Azione delle Camicie Nere (English: Auxiliary Corps of the Action Squads of the Black Shirts), simply known as the ‘Brigate Nere’ (English: Black Brigades), under the control of the Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana.

On 5 July 1944, Pavolini sent a 5-point circular to the commanders of the Black Brigades that were in the process of being constituted. It indicated the order of battle of the territorial brigades as consisting of a Brigade Command, composed of the Commander, Vice Commander, Chief of Staff, Operations Office, Information Office, Office of Personnel and Discipline, Materials Office, Administrative Office, Office Assistance-Propaganda and Press, Health Service. The Brigade Command had at its disposal three battaglioni (English: battalions), each with about 320 militiamen divided into a command and three regular compagnie (English: companies).

Each company, with 105 militiamen, was divided into a command and three regular squadre (English: squads), which consisted of a squad commander and 33 men. Each squad was divided into three nuclei composed of 11 men, including the nucleus commander. Pavolini’s circular also provided that each brigade would receive the name of a soldier that fell for the cause of Republican Fascism.

Only two Black Brigades out of about 60 created received factory-built armored fighting vehicles, the Iª Brigata Nera of Turin, with a SPA Dovunque 35 Blindato, and the XIIIª Brigata Nera ‘Marcello Turchetti’ of Mantova, with an obsolete M11/39 requisitioned from a tank crew training school.

The other brigades were equipped with trucks (of military or civil origin) that they used as transport vehicles or that they armored themselves or in civilian workshops. These improvised armored trucks were meant to help them on anti-partisan patrols or to escort columns of trucks loaded with military equipment or food.

Some examples of improvised armored vehicles used during the Italian Civil War, which broke out during the last two years of the Second World War, were the Lancia 3Ro Blindato of the XXXVI° Brigata Nera ‘Natale Piacentini’ (English: 36th Black Brigade) and (even if not used by a Black Brigade) the FIAT 666N Blindato of the 630ª Compagnia Ordine Pubblico of Piacenza (English: 630th Public Order Company).

The 1ª Brigata Nera ‘Ather Capelli’

After the announcement of the creation of the Brigate Nere in early July 1944, many militiamen loyal to Mussolini and his ideology arrived in the Caserma (English: Barrack) Vittorio Emanuele Dabormida in Corso Stupinigi (now Corso Unione Sovietica) in Turin. On 7th July 1944, the 1ª Brigata Nera, also known as Iª Brigata Nera (with Roman numerals), was created.

The soldiers were volunteers from other units near Turin. After the armistice, they had remained without command and were employed as police officers in Turin or the countryside. Other former Regio Esercito soldiers from other fronts had returned to their houses in Turin after the armistice and joined up, also accompanied by young fascists without military training but loyal to Mussolini and his ideology.

The unit was located until September 1944 at the Caserma Giuseppe Arimondi in Via Verdi, in Turin. Then it was moved to the Caserma Cernaia in Via Cernaia, renamed by the brigade into the Caserma Luigi Riva after the Secretary of the Partito Fascista Repubblicano, Comandante del Fascio Luigi Riva. He had been killed in a truck during a partisan ambush on 30th October 1943 on the road between Borgone di Susa and Turin, returning, together with a dozen of militiamen, from checking the damage done to the fascist headquarters in Borgone di Susa, which the partisans had vandalized.

The 1st Black Brigade, like the other black brigades, received the name of a fascist killed by the partisans. The fascist from which the unit took its name was Ather Capelli, born in Ferrara in 1902. He was a great supporter of the fascist ideology and participated in the March on Rome (a fascist march on Rome leading to Mussolini’s political party coming to power in Italy) in October 1922. He became a journalist before enlistment as a volunteer for the Ethiopian War of 1935, where he was badly wounded.

At the start of the Second World War, his request to re-enlist in the Regio Esercito was refused due to war wounds. He continued his journalist career and, on 20th September 1943, became director of the ‘Gazzetta del Popolo’ of Turin (originally founded as a liberal and anti-clerical paper in the 19th century this was, by the end of the 1920s, an avowedly fascist-party-supporting paper). After 17th January 1944, he was also director of the weekly ‘Illustrazione del Popolo’, part of the ‘Gazzetta del Popolo’.

Capelli was killed in Turin on 31 March 1944 by a commando of the partisan Gruppi di Azione Patriottica or GAP (English: Patriotic Action Groups) while he was returning home from work. Giuseppe Bravin and Giovanni Pesce (a famous Italian Communist Partisan leader) were the partisans who ambushed and killed him. In retaliation, on 2nd April 1944, five prisoners held in fascist prisons were shot without trial on a nearby street.

On 25th August 1944, the creation of the unit ended. The Black Brigade was commanded, like the other black brigades, by the city’s Federale (English: Federal), in this case, Turin’s Federale Giuseppe Solaro.

It was originally composed of two battalions. The I° Battaglione (English: 1st Battalion) commanded by Major Alberto Villa had in its composition the 1ª Compagnia Mobile (English: 1st Mobile Company) commanded by Captain Carlo Orsini, the 2ª Compagnia (English: 2nd Company) commanded by Captain Alfredo Maestroni and the 3ª Compagnia (English: 3rd Company) commanded by Captain Aldo Giacone.

The II° Battaglione (English: 2nd Battalion), under the command of Major Placido Tiseo, had in its composition the Squadra d’Azione ‘Torresi’ (English: Action Squad) and Squadra d’azione ‘Albarella’ of the Compagnia ‘EIAR’ (English: EIAR Company), composed of a couple dozens of militiamen that defended Turin and Milan’s Ente Italiano per le Audizioni Radiofoniche or EIAR (English: Italian Body for Radio Broadcasting) buildings. The Compagnia ‘EIAR’ was commanded by Captain Cesare Rivelli.

In Turin, the Squadra d’Azione ‘Torresi’ was located in Via Arsenale 21, where the leadership of the EIAR was placed, and in Via Montebello 12, where the production studios were located.

The 4ª Compagnia (English: 4th Company) was assigned to the II° Battaglione, commanded by Captain Giovanni Consiglio. In total, the unit was composed, on 25th August 1944, of over 569 Black Shirt militiamen and auxiliaries.

Table 1: 1ª Brigata Nera ‘Ather Capelli’ units until December 1944

1ª Brigata Nera ‘Ather Capelli’ units until December 1944
Name	Commander	Place	Number of soldiers
Comando di Brigata	Federale Giuseppe Solaro	Turin	23 officers, 40 NCOs
Compagnia Comando	Capitano Alessandro Sapey	Turin
Daily Press “La Riscossa”	Direttore Lorenzo Tealdy	Turin
I° Battaglione	Maggiore Alberto Villa	Turin	360 soldiers
1ª Compagnia Mobile	Capitano Carlo Orsini	Turin	129 soldiers
2ª Compagnia	Capitano Alfredo Maestroni	Turin	105 soldiers
3ª Compagnia	Capitano Aldo Giacone	Turin	126 soldiers
II° Battaglione	Maggiore Placido Tiseo	?	//
4ª Compagnia	Capitano Giovanni Consiglio	Turin
Presidio di Pinerolo	Tenente Spirito Novena	Pinerolo	25 soldiers
Presidio di Buriasco		Buriasco
Presidio di Chieri	Tenente Giuseppe Carbone	Chieri	96 soldiers
Compagnia ‘EIAR’	Capitano Cesare Rivelli	Turin
Squadra d’Azione ‘Torresi’	Tenente Vincenzo Mortillaro di Ciantro	Turin	41 soldiers
Squadra d’Azione ‘Albarella’	Tenente Ventimiglia	Milan
Total		//	Over 600 soldiers

With the continuation of the war and the influx of new voluntary recruits and guns, the unit was reorganized in December 1944. The I° Battaglione, commanded by Major Alberto Villa (after 6th March 1945, commanded by Major Alfredo Maestroni) now had the 1ª Compagnia, which had changed its name, commanded by Major Placido Tiseo, the 2ª Compagnia commanded by Captain Alfredo Maestroni, substituted in March 1945 by Captain Victor Risso and the 3ª Compagnia commanded by Captain Giuseppe Motta.

The II° Battaglione, under the command of Major Pagnini, had in its composition the Squadra d’Azione ‘Torresi’ of the Compagnia ‘EIAR’, commanded by Captain Mario Porta (Squadra d’Azione ‘Albarella’ was assigned in late 1944 to the VIIIª Brigata Nera ‘Aldo Resega’ of Milan), the 4ª Compagnia commanded by Captain Duodero, the 5ª Compagnia commanded by Captain Antonio Rubatto and 6ª Compagnia commanded by Captain Spirito Novena until 28th February 1945, after which Captain Umberto Ragona substituted him. In total, on 30th March 1945, the unit was comprised of a thousand Black Shirts, militiamen, and auxiliaries.

On 2nd April 1945, Turin’s new Federale, Mario Pavia, took over the command of the Black Brigade, because Federale Giuseppe Solaro was promoted Ispettore Regionale per le Brigate Nere (English: Regional Inspector of the Black Brigades) in Piemonte. He left the Black Brigade’s command on 23 April 1945, two days before the Great Partisan Insurrection of 25 April that would free the main Italian cities from Fascist and Nazi control before the Allied armies arrived.

The vice-commander of the unit was Lieutenant Colonnello Lorenzo Tealdy, also director of the daily newspaper ‘La Riscossa’ that dealt with topics of the fascist unions in Turin and articles on the activities of the unit.

In December 1944, the Compagnia Armi Appoggio (English: Support Gun Company) was also created under the command of Captain Luigi Rey di Villerey with some armored vehicles and support guns. A new addition was also the Gruppo d’Azione Giovanile (English: Group of Young Action), also known as Compagnia ‘Balilla’. During its operational life, from mid-1944 to April 1945, the black brigade also created the Presidio di Santena (English: Garrison of Santena) in Santena, about 15 km from Turin. It was active from September to October 1944. The Presidio di Caramagna Piemonte, about 32 km from Turin, was composed of 12 Black Shirts but, at an unspecified date (before 1945), it was assigned to the Iª Brigata Nera Mobile ‘Vittorio Rocciarelli’ of Milan. The same fate be fell the Presidio di Carmagnola under Lieutenant Michele Rizzi, the Presidio di Cavallermaggiore and the Presidio di Racconigi of Captain Fortunato Troini, all reassigned to the Iª Brigata Nera Mobile.

Other garrisons were the Presidio di Moncalieri, a couple of kilometers from Turin, the Presidio di Leinì about 12 km from Turin and assigned to the II° Battaglione, the Presidio di Venaria, part of the conurbation of Turin, with 12 militiamen and an NCO under 3ª Compagnia’s command, and the Presidio di Ulzio, about 67 km from Turin, created on 25th August 1944 under command of Lieutenant Elio Triola and then Lieutenant Giovanni Ancillotti, assigned to the II° Battaglione.

Tabel 2: 1ª Brigata Nera ‘Ather Capelli’ units from December 1944 to early 1945

1ª Brigata Nera ‘Ather Capelli’ units from December 1944 to early 1945
Name	Commander	Place	Number of soldiers
Comando di Brigata	Federale Giuseppe Solaro	Turin	23 officers, 40 NCOs
Compagnia Comando	Capitano Alessandro Sapey	Turin
Daily Press “La Riscossa”	Direttore Lorenzo Tealdy	Turin
Compagnia Armi Appoggio	Capitano Luigi Rey di Villerey	Turin	3 officers, 4 NCOs and ~100 soldiers
Compagnia Deposito	Capitano Guglielmo Gianoglio	Turin
Gruppo d’Azione Giovanile also known as Compagnia ‘Balilla’	Sottotenente Tullio De Chiffre	Turin
Servizio Sanitario	Capitano Luigi Starace	Turin	3 nurses and 2 auxiliaries
Servizio Ausiliario Femminile	Tenente Anna Maria Bardia	Turin
Presidio di Moncalieri		Moncalieri
I° Battaglione	Maggiore Alberto Villa	Turin
1ª Compagnia Mobile	Maggiore Placido Tiseo	Turin
2ª Compagnia	Capitano Alfredo Maestroni	Turin
3ª Compagnia	Capitano Giuseppe Motta	Turin
Presidio di Venaria		Venaria	1 NCO and 12 soldiers
II° Battaglione	Maggiore Pagnini	//
4ª Compagnia	Capitano Duodero	Turin
5ª Compagnia	Capitano Antonio Rubatto	Chivasso
6ª Compagnia	Capitano Spirito Novena	Pinerolo	~100 militiamen
Presidio di Chieri	Tenente Giuseppe Carbone	Chieri
Presidio di Leinì		Leinì
Presidio di Ulzio	Tenente Elio Triola	Ulzio
Compagnia or Presidio di Pinerolo		Pinerolo	5 officers, 87 NCOs and militiamen and 5 auxiliaries
Compagnia ‘EIAR’	Capitano Cesare Rivelli	Turin
Squadra d’Azione ‘Torresi’	Capitano Mario Porta	Turin	41 soldiers
Notes	Unfortunately the irregular nature of the units, and the poor record keeping that exact numbers are not known for many of the sub units.
Total		//	Over 1,000 soldiers

The Italian writer Marco Nava, in his book ‘1^ Brigata Nera “Ather Capelli”: Una documentazione’, mentions that the Compagnia Armi Appoggio had in its ranks an improvised armored car on unspecified chassis, a SPA Dovunque 35 Blindato, four 81 mm mortars, a 45 mm mortar, 2 Cannoni-Mitragliera Breda da 20/65 Modello 1935s and 2 Cannoni da 47/32 Modello 1935s, about 100 militiamen, 4 NCOs and 3 officers: Lieutenant Pessot, Lieutenant Grindato, and the company commander, Captain Luigi Rey di Villerey.

The Comando di Brigata and Compagnia Comando, all the I° Battaglione, the 4ª Compagnia of the II° Battaglione, Compagnia Armi Appoggio were positioned in Turin at the Caserma Luigi Riva in Via Cernaia. The Gruppo d’Azione Giovanile was headquartered in Turin in Via Ettore Muti (Now Via Gagliani), in the Casa Littoria.

The Squadra d’Azione ‘Torresi’ of the Compagnia ‘EIAR’ was deployed to protect the radio buildings in Turin. The 5ª Compagnia was placed as a garrison in Chivasso, in the Caserma del Distretto Militare (English: Military District Barrack). The 6ª Compagnia was placed in the Casa Littoria in Pinerolo. It was the former 4ª Compagnia that was renamed after December 1944.

Table 3: 1ª Brigata Nera ‘Ather Capelli’ unit equipment on 30th August 1945

1ª Brigata Nera ‘Ather Capelli’ unit equipment on 30th August 1945
Name	Type	Deployed	In the armory	Unusable	Total Number	Ammunition
Machine guns
FIAT-Revelli Mod. 14/35	Medium machine gun	3			3	17,200 rounds
Breda Mod. 1930	Light machine gun	3			3	2,280 rounds
St. Étienne mod. 1907	Medium machine gun			1	1	11,500 rounds
SubMachine Guns (SMGs) and pistols
MAB	SMGs	16	1		17	9,440 rounds in the armory
	SMGs
Sten	SMGs	4			4
“Parabellum SMG”	SMGs		1
“Greek and Yugoslavian SMGs”	SMGs		2
		7	9		16
	Revolvers	48	8		56	2,505 rounds in the armory
	Automatic pistols	29	3		32
Very	Signal gun	2	1		3	776 rounds
Rifles and carabines
	Sniper rifle		1		1
Moschetti Cavalleria TS 6.5 mm	Rifle	54	1	7	62	18,915 rounds
Moschetti Alpini Mod. 91	Rifle	18	1	1	20
Fucili Mod. 91	Rifle		31	5	36	18,915 rounds
Fucili Mod. 41	Rifle	34	130	2	066
Fucile Mod. 37 6.5 mm	Rifle	54	22	10	86	18,915 rounds
Fucile Mod. 38 7.35 mm	Rifle	235	10	11	256	17,058 rounds
Fucile Cavalleria 7.35 mm	Rifle	2	5		7	17,058 rounds
Steyr Rifles	Rifle		14	4	18
Explosives
German hand grenades	Hand grenade	2	38	120 without percussor	160
OTO	Hand Grenade	72	38		110
	Mine crates		41		41
Dynamite						9 kg in the armory
Heavy armament (in January 1945)
Mortaio da 81 Mod. 35	81 mm mortar	4			4	87 rounds
Brixia Mod. 35	45 mm mortar		1		1	Not present in the armory
Cannone da 20/65 Mod. 35*	20 mm automatic cannon	2			2	Not specified
Cannone da 47/32 Mod. 35*	47 mm support gun	2			2	Not specified
Note	* These guns were deployed by the unit from January 1945

About the trucks in service with the 1ª Brigata Nera ‘Ather Capelli’, not much is known. The sources claim that, on 28th July 1944, the unit captured a Bianchi medium truck (model not specified, probably a Bianchi Miles) and a Lancia 3Ro heavy-duty truck in a surprise attack against the partisans. The communist units tried to steal military equipment from freight cars loaded with fascist equipment in the Bagnolo Piemonte train station. Cpt led the fascist attack. Spirito Novena was, at the time, commander of the Presidio di Buriasco (30 km from Turin) and the 16 militiamen-strong ‘Squadra Fantasma’ (English: Phantom Team) that managed to kill 12 partisans and wound another 20. Marco Nava also claims that the Compagnia Armi Appoggio was also equipped with an improvised armored personnel carrier on the FIAT 1100 car chassis.

According to an article on the Black Brigade written by Italian author Paolo Crippa on the website zimmerit.com, the 1st Black Brigade was also equipped with a FIAT 626 medium truck.

In the book ‘1^ Brigata Nera “Ather Capelli”: Una documentazione’, the deployment of a column of vehicles of the Black Brigade “consisting of three trucks and two cars” is mentioned on 6th March 1945. This was for an anti-partisan operation during which at least 18 militiamen of the brigade were killed and probably some vehicles were lost.

From photographic evidence, it is known that the 1ª Brigata Nera ‘Ather Capelli’ was also equipped with some motorcycles and a 1-tonne Autocarretta OM light lorry, probably used to tow the artillery pieces of the Black Brigade.

Design

In Northern and Central Italy, which were controlled by the Axis, German and Italian troops had about 1,000 trucks in service. These were insufficient, considering that the Esercito Nazionale Repubblicano and the Wehrmacht counted about 600,000 soldiers. Few trucks were delivered to Italian units, which, in most cases, tried to compensate by capturing others from partisans or requisitioning civilian trucks.

None of the existing sources mention on which chassis the improvised armored car was built. The Black Brigade had in its ranks a FIAT 626 medium truck and the chassis of the armored car might seem similar to the FIAT 626 chassis at a quick glance.

The FIAT 626 was a cab-over-engine medium truck produced by the FIAT Mirafiori plant in Turin. It was one of the first cab-over-engine trucks of the FIAT company and could not be the chassis under the Iª Brigata Nera ‘Ather Capelli’. The armored car seems to be based on a conventional-cab chassis in the few available photos.

Thus, it is possible it was based on one of the only two other vehicles that we know that the Black Brigade had captured and probably reused, a Lancia 3Ro heavy-duty truck produced by Lancia Veicoli Industriali of Turin or a medium truck produced by Bianchi company of Milan, probably a Bianchi Miles.

The Lancia 3Ro was an enormous vehicle, with a payload capacity of over 6 tonnes and a maximum speed of 45 km/h. It was huge, and it is improbable that the improvised armored car of the ‘Ather Capelli’ Brigade was built on its chassis. To give a comparison, the Lancia 3Ro Blindato of the XXXVI° Brigata Nera ‘Natale Piacentini’ was a colossus that does not match the dimensions of the improvised armored car of the unit.

The last vehicle is the Bianchi medium truck, of which the model is not specified. During the war, Bianchi produced the Mediolanum and Miles. The latter seems more similar to the improvised armored car chassis.

Two clues that make the Bianchi Miles chassis hypothesis more plausible. One is the presence of headlights fixed on the engine hood-sides. This system was rarely seen on Italian trucks, which usually had them mounted and connected on the frontal mudguards. On the Bianchi Miles, the headlights were instead connected to the electric circuit through the engine bay sides.

The Bianchi Miles

The Bianchi Miles was a conventional-cab medium truck produced by Fabbrica Automobili e Velocipedi Edoardo Bianchi (English: Edoardo Bianchi Automobiles and Bicycle Factory) in the Desio plant, near Milan, in Lombardia.

The civilian version was produced until the start of the Second World War; while the military version was produced from 1938 to 1943 for the Regio Esercito and from November 1943 to early 1945 for the Germans, who received 90 newly produced vehicles.

The Regio Esercito used the Bianchi truck in the majority of the campaigns where it was involved: Southern France, the Balkans, the Soviet Union, and most importantly, North Africa.

Some specialized variants were also produced, such as ambulances, buses with 23 seats, mobile bathrooms with showers for the soldiers and mobile refrigerators. In August 1943, a Self-Propelled Anti-Aircraft Gun (SPAAG) version armed with a 25 mm Mod. 38 cannon captured from the French in 1940 was also proposed. The vehicle carried 4 gun crew members and 380 25 mm rounds. A pre-series of 20 vehicles was ordered, but the Armistice canceled the project.

From 1946 to 1952, an upgraded version called Bianchi Civis 75 was built, with military and civilian versions.

The cargo bay was made of wood planks 4 meters long and 2 meters wide. Only the rear side was foldable. The maximum payload was 3,000 kg, while the loaded truck weighed 6,500 kg. For the transport of troops, 6 cross benches could be set up.

Engine and suspension

The Bianchi Miles was powered by a Mercedes-Benz MDU 35 M diesel engine produced under license by Bianchi, equipped with a manual inertia starter. The engine delivered 65 hp at 2,000 rpm and was powered by a pump and injectors manufactured under license from Bosch.

The maximum speed was 64 km/h and the maximum range was 350 km thanks to the main fuel tank, with a capacity of 70 liters and the reserve tank of 15 liters placed behind the dashboard, which fed the engine by gravity. This guaranteed that, in the event of a malfunction of the fuel pump, the truck could reach a workshop for repairs. This system saved many drivers from breakdowns in the middle of the desert.

The brake system was a two-disc dry clutch and could be disassembled independently of the transmission for easier and quicker maintenance. The Bianchi Miles had four gears and one reverse. A pneumatic servo brake pedal operated the hydraulic drum brakes.

The Miles had one 12-volt circuit powered by a 90-watt Magneti Marelli dynamo that served two front headlights, the license plate light, windshield wipers, an electric horn, and dashboard lighting.

The suspension consisted of leaf-springs on each wheel but, in the rear axle, were mounted in couple.

Armament

The improvised vehicle was armed with a Cannone-Mitragliera Breda da 20/65 Modello 1935 gas-operated air cooled automatic cannon developed by Società Italiana Ernesto Breda per Costruzioni Meccaniche of Brescia.

This was first presented in 1932, and, after a series of comparative tests with autocannons produced by Scotti, Madsen, and Lübbe, it was officially adopted in 1935. The Regio Esercito adopted it as a dual-use automatic cannon. It was a highly effective anti-aircraft and anti-tank gun and, in Spain, during the Spanish Civil War, some Panzer Is were modified to accommodate this gun in their small turret to fight the Soviet light tanks deployed by the Republicans.

From 1936 onward, the gun was produced in a vehicle mount variant and was installed in L6/40 light reconnaissance tanks and AB41 and AB43 medium armored cars.

It was produced in the Breda plants in Brescia and Rome and by the Terni gun factory, with a maximum average monthly production of 160 autocannons. The Regio Esercito used more than 3,000 in all the war theaters. Hundreds were captured and reused in North Africa by the Commonwealth troops, who greatly appreciated its characteristics.

After the armistice of 8th September 1943, a total of over 2,600 Scotti-Isotta-Fraschini and Breda 20 mm automatic cannons were produced for the Germans, who renamed it ‘Breda 2 cm FlaK-282(i)’.

It had a total weight of 307 kg with its field carriage, which gave it 360° traverse, a depression of -10° and an elevation of +80°. Its maximum range was 5,500 meters. Against flying aircraft, it had a practical range of 1,500 meters, and against armored targets, it had a maximum practical range between 600 and 1,000 meters.

The muzzle velocity was about 830 m/s, while its theoretical rate of fire was 240 rounds per minute, which dropped to 200 – 220 rounds per minute in practice.

It was fed by 12-round clips on the field version and 8-round clips in the vehicle version. The type of clips used on the improvised armored car of the 1ª Brigata Nera ‘Ather Capelli’ is unknown, as is the number of clips transported in the vehicle.

Modification and Operational use

The Arsenale Regio Esercito di Torino or ARET (English: Royal Army Arsenal of Turin) produced artillery pieces, and small armored plates and helped develop some armored vehicles before the Armistice, such as the FIAT 665NM Scudato.

After the Armistice, it changed its name to Arsenale di Torino and its primary tasks also changed. In addition to producing artillery pieces, it specialized in the production of armored plates for improvised vehicles that it also converted in its depots or that the units mounted themselves at their barracks. An example of improvised vehicles built by it were the SPA-Viberti AS43 Blindata of the Battaglione ‘Fulmine’ of the Xª Flottiglia MAS, which received armored plates that were mounted on the chassis by workers from one of the Turin’s FIAT factories, and the two armored vehicles delivered for the defense of the Alto Commissario per il Piemonte (English: High Commissioner for Piemonte) Paolo Zerbino that were assembled in the Arsenale di Torino.

If the vehicle was really built on the Bianchi Miles chassis captured to the partisans on 28th July 1944 by the ‘Squadra Fantasma’, it means that the vehicle was transferred from Buriasco to Turin, where it was delivered to the Arsenale di Torino in the weeks after. The transformation probably required a lot of time. One source claims that the vehicle was delivered to the Black Brigade only in November 1944.

It is logical to suppose that the armor was made of steel plates recovered by the units from various sources, with a thickness from 5 mm to 8 mm, as on other improvised armored vehicles produced in that period. The frontal engine compartment was protected frontally with an armored grille for the radiator, while vertical armored plates protected the sides.

From photographic evidence, the armored car’s windshield was left unprotected, quite a questionable choice. It is plausible that the windshield had an openable shield with a driver slot that could be raised when a gunfight was imminent.

The only existing photo of the armored car’s side shows that the armored plates just behind the driving compartment were welded in a different position for an unknown reason.

The turret, of small dimensions, was trapezoidal-shaped with a square base. The gunner, probably the only crewmember that sat in the turret, had a hatch on the turret’s top, opening towards the front. From the poor quality photos of the vehicle, it is not clear if the turret top had a small periscope to check the battlefield from inside the vehicle.

It seems the gun had a limited elevation and depression and it seems that it did not have a coaxial machine gun. This is probably because the Breda gun mounted in the turret was a standard field one (recognizable by the differences in the barrel) that was not equipped with supports for a coaxial machine gun. The space in the turret interior was really cramped, and the loading operations were probably difficult.

The absence of slots on the sides of the turret suggests that the commander could only check the battlefield through the gun sight and probably from the small periscope mounted on the turret roof.

Only a slot was placed on the superstructure side, allowing the driver and commander to check the sides of the vehicle. A large rectangular access door seems to have been placed on the superstructure side, just under the turret, and probably another access door was placed on the rear side, such as on armored personnel carriers. This meant that, in case of emergency, the crew could enter or exit the vehicle quickly. Behind the turret, there was a transport compartment for some militiamen of the Black Brigade. From the images of the vehicle, it is visible that the rear part of the roof, behind the turret, was slightly higher than the other parts of the roof.

The crew was probably composed of four militiamen. The driver was probably on the right side of the driving compartment and the commander on the left. In the turret was the gunner, who operated the 20 mm automatic cannon, while a loader was also probably transported to facilitate the loading operations. At the rear, there were probably some benches for four to six fully equipped soldiers or enough space for a spare wheel and ammunition racks.

Operational Service

Nothing is known about the use of the improvised armored car and the armored personnel carrier SPA Dovunque 35 Blindato, even if the armored car was used for at least 5 months by the Black Brigade.

From November 1944 to April 1945, the units of the Black Brigade stationed in the Caserma Luigi Riva, where the vehicle was located, took part only in public order activities, where a vehicle with its characteristics was not needed.

The official documentation never mentions the service of the Compagnia Armi Pesanti, so it is currently impossible to know how they were used. On 13th November 1944, a “vehicle” (according to one source) of the Black Brigade was involved in a skirmish against partisans in Moncucco Torinese, a few kilometers from Turin. On this occasion, a militiaman, Secondo Casetta, was killed.

After 18th November 1944, some companies of the Black Brigade, supported by a couple dozen of the Compagnia ‘EIAR’ supported the Presidio di Caramagna in an anti-partisan operation that was a total failure. Only 13 deserters and partisans were arrested.

Starting 29th November, a company of the Iª Brigata Nera ‘Ather Capelli’, composed of about seventy soldiers under the orders of Captain Amilcare Villani, took part in one of the phases of Operation ‘Koblenz’ in the provinces of Asti and Alessandria. Turin’s militiamen, reinforced by elements of the Vª Brigata Nera ‘Carlo Lidonnici’ of Cuneo, about 150 men in all, were aggregated to a company of the German SS-Polizei Regiment 15. Turin’s Black Brigade members raked the villages of Baldichieri, Villafranca, San Paolo, Savi, Castelnuovo Don Bosco and Murisengo, where the unit was stationed for a few days.

From Murisengo, the company moved to Felizzano and took part in the roundup operations in the area of Nizza Monferrato. Near Monastero Bormida, the unit captured numerous partisans who had escaped from the previous anti-partisan operation. On 10th December 1944, the company returned to Turin. The troopers did not suffer any losses during the entire operational cycle.

On 18th January, militiaman Bartolomeo Vittone was captured and killed. He belonged to the company of Pinerolo. For this reason, on 5th February 1945, 45 militiamen, under the orders of Captain Novena, made a raid in Villafranca Piemonte, where some of those responsible for the murder of Vittone were hiding.

After having surrounded a block, the Black Brigade’s militiamen entered into a lodging, capturing three young men armed with pistols and belonging to the partisan’s IV° Brigata Garibaldi (English: 4th Garibaldi Brigade). During the same operation the troopers, after a brief firefight that killed Giulio Maritano, former captain of the Royal Army, captured Ettore Carando, Chief of Staff of the partisan brigade, and Leo Lanfranco, political commissary of the Garibaldi formation. Before returning to Pinerolo, the soldiers also managed to capture the commander of the partisan police of the IV° Brigata Garibaldi, Enrico Carando.

In this operation, men from Caserma Luigi Riva were deployed, but nothing is known about the armored vehicles.

Between 19th and 20th February 1945, the Compagnia di Pinerolo, together with units of the Gruppo Esplorante (English: Exploring Group) of the Divisione Granatieri ‘Littorio’ (English: Grenadier Division), took part in a vast anti-partisan operation in the area of Torre Pellice, Bagnolo Piemonte and Campiglione.

The operation led to the discovery of the command of the 105ª Brigata Garibaldi ‘Carlo Pisacane’ (the partisans also used the names of fallen patriots for their units). Numerous partisans were captured during the operation, among them some well-known brigade leaders and 60 rifles, 8 submachine guns, 2 machine guns, as well as a considerable amount of ammunition and explosives. No losses were suffered by the unit or the militiamen of the Divisione Granatieri.

On 28th February 1945, by order of the Command of the 5ª Divisione Alpina (English: 5th Alpine Division), a platoon of the Iª Brigata Nera ‘Ather Capelli’ (unknown if the improvised armored car was deployed) and the entire three company-sized XXXVIª Brigata Nera ‘Natale Piacentini’ (English: 36th Black Brigade) of Lucca were transferred to Cavour and Bricherasio in Turin’s province. Lucca’s black brigade had in its ranks 225 officers, NCOs, militians and auxiliaries (in March 1945) and the Lancia 3Ro Blindato. These forces, together with a company of the 5ª Divisione Alpina, took part in a police operation in the countryside east of Saluzzo. Divided into small units, the fascists searched the hills of the area assigned to them without finding any trace of partisan formations. The fascist forces also stopped several civilians who had taken refuge in the mountains to escape compulsory enlistment in the RSI armies or to escape forced enlistment as workers in wartime factories. The operation ended on the evening of 28th February.

On 25th April 1945, the new commander of the Black Brigade, Mario Pavia, ordered all the remaining soldiers to concentrate in the barracks at Via Cernaia, where about 300 militiamen arrived. Units of the 1ª Compagnia ‘Arditi’ of the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ with some armored vehicles converged on the Caserma Luigi Riva.

In the morning of 26th April 1945, the partisans began the occupation of some factories in Turin and of the railway stations of Porta Nuova and Porta Susa. These were recaptured the same day by units of the Black Brigade, of the GNR and of the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’.

In the afternoon of the 26th of April, from the nearby barracks of the Polizia Ausiliaria (English: Auxiliary Police) in Via Cernaia, where the agents had joined the partisans, a heavy firefight started against the barracks of the Black Brigade. Four tanks of the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ and three armored cars, probably two of the ‘Leonessa’ and probably the improvised armored car of the ‘Ather Capelli’, supported by a platoon of soldiers of the brigade attacked the building in the late afternoon. After having broken through the main door with cannon fire, the armored vehicles and the squad broke into the building.

The agents and the partisans fled, leaving about ten dead on the ground, while the fascists suffered only a few injuries.

Throughout 27th April 1945, the fascists kept the partisans as far away as possible from the area where the republican units were concentrated. In order to break the resistance of the men of the 1ª Brigata Nera ‘Ather Capelli’, the partisans started to hit the barracks of Via Cernaia with artillery and mortars. Due to their inexperience with similar weapons, the shells did not cause casualties.

Towards evening, Colonel Cabras, commander of the GNR, gave the order to implement the plan ‘Esigenza Z2B’, which provided for the concentration of the republican units in Valtellina. The forces taking part in the retreat had to concentrate in Piazza Castello the same evening.

The column moved from Piazza Castello around 1 am on 28th April 1945. The armored vehicles of the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ were located at the head and tail of the column, while the units of the ‘Ather Capelli’ formed the rear guard.

The column traversed Turin without being involved in clashes. A barricade at the bridge over the Dora was broken through by the armored vehicles. Once on the Turin highway, the column continued to Chivasso and then proceeded along the state road to Cigliano, where it stopped to avoid being hit by the Allied air force. The night after, the column moved towards Livorno.

Colonel Cabras, commander of the column, having ascertained the impossibility of continuing towards Valtellina, gave the order to continue north and reach the area of Strambino Romano, where the bulk of the German and Republican units coming from the western Alpine front were already concentrating. In Cascine Romane, the units stopped. The first American troops arrived in the area on 5th May 1945 and the fascist troops surrendered to them without resistance.

Conclusion

The improvised armored car of the 1ª Brigata Nera ‘Ather Capelli’, was one of the dozens of improvised vehicles produced by Repubblica Sociale Italiana units during the last years of the Second World War. Its service is unknown but was probably limited, as were other similar vehicles.

It is one of the less known improvised vehicles of the war. In comparison, similar vehicles, such as the FIAT 666N Blindato of the 630ª Compagnia OP of Piacenza or the Lancia 3Ro Blindato that were deployed with the same tasks, have better detailed operative histories.

Its service was probably also limited due to the vehicle’s weight, which probably exceeded the 6.5 tonnes of the truck + load of the standard military Bianchi Miles version. Due to the vehicle’s weight, it was probably often under repairs due to mechanical failures.

Due to the critical situation of the RSI units in the last stages of the Second World War, it was probably problematic for the unit to find the necessary spare parts to keep it operational.

Sources

1^ Brigata Nera “Ather Capelli”: Una documentazione – Marco Nava – E-book

36^ Brigata Nera “Natale Piacentini”: Una Documentazione – Leonardo Sandri – E-book

Relazione Circa l’Attività della Brigata Nera “Ather Capelli” Partito Fascista Italiano – Corpo Ausiliario delle Camicie Nere – E-book

Italia 43-45, I Blindati di Circostanza della Guerra Civile – Paolo Crippa – Tankmaster Special. Italian and English editions Volume 4th, July 2014

Le Brigate Nere: Una Documentazione Struttura – Organigrammi – Operazioni 2^ Edizione – Leonardo Sandri – E-book

Associazione Nazionale Combattenti e Reduci. 2019. Le Brigate Nere, La Ather Capelli di Torino. https://www.combattentiereduci.it/notizie/le-brigate-nere-la-ather-cappelli-di-torino Access date: 28th Jun. 2022.

I^ Brigata Nera “Ather Capelli” TORINO. https://spazioinwind.libero.it/bnere/brigate/athercapelli-i.htm Access date: 28th Jun. 2022.

Reparti Corazzati della Polizia Repubblicana e Brigate Nere http://www.zimmerit.com/zimmeritpedia/italia_rsi/ITALIA_RSI_MUTI.html Access date: 28th Jun. 2022.

Italian Social Republic (1943-1945)
Light Reconnaissance Tank – Small Number Operated

The Carro Armato L6/40 was an Italian Regio Esercito (English: Royal Army) light reconnaissance tank. It was the first Italian light tank equipped with a rotating turret to enter service in the Italian Army after the FIAT 3000 in the early 1920s. It was also one of the first vehicles equipped with torsion bar suspension in service with the Regio Esercito.

After the Armistice of 8th September 1943, when the Kingdom of Italy announced its decision to leave the war, abandoning its German allies, the Italian territories not yet liberated by the Allied forces were occupied by the Germans. They captured a million Italian soldiers and almost all the Italian tanks.

Some Italian units that remained loyal to Benito Mussolini continued the war in the new Repubblica Sociale Italiana (English: Italian Social Republic). They operated the few tanks and armored vehicles left abandoned that they could recover from depots or workshops.

Brief Summary – from 13th May to 8th September 1943

On 13th May 1943, after furious and bloody fighting, the North African Campaign was brought to an end with the defeat of the rest of the Italian and German armies. On the Italian peninsula, the population was beginning to show displeasure with the fascist government.

By 10th June 1940 (the day Italy entered the war), the Royal Army had failed in the Invasion of Greece, and it would soon lose the colonies Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia in East Africa. In addition, in 1943, the Italian Army in Russia had suffered a disastrous defeat and thousands of casualties during its westward retreat.

This discontent was exploited by the King of Italy, who, on 25th July 1943, had Benito Mussolini arrested on charges of treason. On the same day, Marshal of Italy Pietro Badoglio came to power as the new prime minister of a royalist government that secretly began making contacts with the Allied forces to sign an armistice.

On 3rd September 1943, the Armistice of Cassibile was signed in Sicily, while the Armistice was made public by the Allied newspapers and Italian radio on 8th September 1943.

The same day, the Germans started Fall Achse (English: Operation Axis), which found the Italian soldiers unprepared. Apart from a few generals and politicians and, of course, the Germans, no one in the Regio Esercito was aware of the armistice. In a few days, the German soldiers suppressed any kind of Italian resistance in the Balkans, southern France and the Italian peninsula, killing about 20,000 Italians, capturing over a million soldiers, and a bit less than a 1,000 armored fighting vehicles.

Mussolini was freed by a unit of German paratroopers and SS that accompanied him to Germany, where he met Adolf Hitler. On 23rd September, Mussolini, after having decided the fate of Italy with Hitler, returned to Italy. In Salò, near Brescia, he founded the Repubblica Sociale Italiana in the Italian territories not yet occupied by the Allied forces.

His new republic could count on about 300,000 soldiers in the Esercito Nazionale Repubblicano or ENR (English: National Republican Army) and on about 140,000 soldiers in the Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana or GNR (English: National Republican Guard).

Unfortunately, the Germans had occupied all the factories in Italy, forcing them to deliver all the newly produced tanks, planes, artillery pieces and logistic vehicles to their units, leaving only scraps to the Italian units.

The Carro Armato L6/40

In the late 1930s, the Italian Regio Esercito tried to develop a new light tank with a rotating turret to replace the older CV light tanks series in the ranks of its armored units. After a series of failed projects, on 26th October 1939, the FIAT-Ansaldo consortium proposed the M6T, a 6-tonnes tank (in that period still called a medium tank) armed with two machine guns in a one-man turret.

The Italian High Command was not impressed with the M6. On the same day, General Cosma Manera of the Centro Studi della Motorizzazione or CSM (English: Center of Motorization Studies), however, showed interest in the vehicle. He proposed to accept it into service on the condition that the armament be changed to a 20 mm automatic cannon mounted in the turret. In the eyes of Gen. Manera, this solution, in addition to increasing the tank’s anti-armor performance, would also make it capable of engaging aircraft.

The vehicle was then modified with a new one-man turret armed with a 20 mm Cannone-Mitragliera Breda da 20/65 Modello 1935. However, it did not have enough elevation to hit flying targets. It was accepted in service anyway in April 1940 as the Carro Armato Leggero da 6 tonnellate Modello 1940 (English: 6 tonnes Light Tank Model 1940) or, more simply, Carro Armato L6/40.

In total, 415 were produced for the Italian Regio Esercito, plus another 17 for the German Army between 1943 and 1944. After the Armistice, the Germans captured the majority of the existing vehicles, leaving few serviceable tanks to the new Repubblica Sociale Italiana.

Operational use after the Armistice

The Repubblica Sociale Italiana had some L6/40s in service in the Esercito Nazionale Repubblicano and the Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana.

31° Reggimento Fanteria Carrista

The 31° Reggimento Fanteria Carrista (English: 31st Tank Crew Infantry Regiment) was a tank unit deployed in the Balkans after 1939, first in Albania, then in Greece.

When the Armistice was made public, some of its soldiers did not accept the surrender. Some examples were Captain Ulrico Ripandelli, commander of the 6ª Compagnia Carri (English: 6th Tank Company) of the III Battaglione Carri (English: 3rd Tank Battalion), together with other soldiers and vehicles from the II Battaglione Carri (English: 2nd Tank Battalion) and other companies of the III Battaglione Carri. They all decided to join the Germans.

The Germans trusted them and, after painting some coats of arms to avoid friendly fire, immediately assigned them to the 118. Jäger-Division in Podgorica and redeployed them against the Yugoslavian Partisans.

The L6/40s were rarely deployed, as the 40 L3 light tanks that the unit had in its ranks were preferred.

Esercito Nazionale Repubblicano

Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leoncello’

On 26th September 1944, Captain Gian Carlo Zuccaro started the creation of an armored unit as he was instructed to do by the Army High Command in the previous days. This company was proposed on 20th September 1944 by the Ufficio Operazioni e Servizi of the Stato Maggiore dell’Esercito (English: Operations and Services Office of the Army General Staff).

Cap. Zuccaro had the task of concentrating all the available tanks under the dependencies into a single unit and not individually with small units scattered throughout the parts of the peninsula still in Italian and German hands.

He had already been trying for months to create an armored unit of the RSI without the Germans knowing it. The cover name he had given the unit to confuse the German authorities was Battaglione Carri dell’Autodrappello Ministeriale delle Forze Armate (English: Tank Battalion of the Ministerial Armed Forces).

The Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leoncello’ (English: Armored Group) was created in Polpenazze del Garda near Brescia on 13th September 1944 by Cap. Zuccaro. It had all the tanks that should have been assigned to the Compagnia Autonoma Carri, which was never created. It was never deployed in active service apart from a few skirmishes on 24th and 25th April 1945.

The search for new tanks continued and, on 18th March 1945, the unit was equipped with 1 Semovente M43 da 105/25, 1 M15/42 tank, 4 M13/40 tanks, one non-operational L6/40, and 7 L3 light tanks.

Unfortunately, due to mechanical problems, the L6/40 was not quickly put into service and spent much time in the workshop for repairs. During March and April 1945, the partisan units in the Italian peninsula started a series of violent attacks and sabotages to weaken the exhausted Fascist and Nazi forces. On 25th April 1945, they launched the last attack in the last cities under Axis control. In a few days, they fully liberated the main cities from Fascist presence.

The Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leoncello’ was only deployed during this occasion. A column composed of 5 medium tanks, the self-propelled gun and 3 L3 light tanks towed by the medium tanks to save fuel left Polpenazze on 24th April night to avoid air attacks. It had the new task of reaching Milan (ignoring the fact that Milan was being liberated by the partisans at those hours).

The Carro Armato L6/40 along with another light tank were left in Polpenazze with the unit’s workshop.

Battaglione ‘Lupo’

The Battaglione ‘Lupo’ (Lupo – Wolf) of the Xª Divisione MAS (English: 10th MAS Division) had an L6/40 in service, but, for many years, the sources confused its origin. The first theory written by Giorgio Pisanò and confirmed by veteran of the unit Emilio Maluta says that the unit captured the Carro Armato L6/40 from a partisan unit in Piemonte in September 1944.

The second theory, written by Sergio Corbatti and Marco Nava in the book …Come il Diamante, mentions that three L6/40s were recovered in the 2° Centro Esperienza Artiglieria (English: 2nd Artillery Experience Center) of Ciriè near Turin in September 1944. They were transported to Turin.

The book Battaglione Lupo – Xa Flottiglia MAS 1943-1945, written by Italian writer Guido Bonvicini, reports the testimony of some veterans that sheds further light on the story.

The L6/40 captured from the partisans was abandoned in Milan when, after the anti-partisan operations in Piemonte, the Battaglione ‘Lupo’ was reorganized on 6th November 1944. On that occasion, it was judged as being in a very poor condition and scrapped. On the same occasion, the unit bought 4 Cannoni-Mitragliere Breda da 20/65 Modello 1935 and some 81 mm mortars from the black market.

The three L6/40s recovered in Ciriè were transported to Turin at the Caserma ‘Monte Grappa’ barracks. It is not clear if the three vehicles were too damaged and two were cannibalized to put the third one into service or if more than one vehicle were operational.

One was deployed to break through the partisan encirclement of the Reparto Arditi Ufficiali (English: Arditi Officer Unit) in Venaria Reale near Turin in late October 1944.

One L6/40 without the 20 mm main gun was deployed by the unit during the Reoccupation of Alba. The city had been freed from the Fascist forces in early October 1944 and proclaimed a Free Partisan Republic on 10th October 1944. On 30th October 1944, the Fascist Minister of Interior Paolo Zerbino ordered Colonel Alessandro Ruta, commander of the Raggruppamento Anti Partigiani (English: Anti-Partisan Regroupement), to launch an attack to regain control of the area.

The attack began on 2nd November 1944. Col. Ruta ordered the Battaglione ‘Lupo’, Battaglione ‘Fulmine’ and the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ (English: Armored Group) to participate in the attack as well. The latter sent 2 AB41 medium armored cars and 3 M14/41 medium tanks. Together with these units, some companies of the black brigades were also deployed.

The L6/40 and the other armored vehicles attacked the city from the south-east, approaching on the Roddi-Alba road. Due to the road being mined, they needed to proceed on the roadside, where they risked getting stuck in the mud which was the result of many rainy days.

They easily broke through the partisan defensive line, but the battle finished about mid day, when a unit of the Raggruppamento Anti Partigiani attacked the partisans from the north by surprise, forcing them to retreat.

The Battaglione ‘Lupo’ then moved to Milan, where it scrapped the L6/40 captured from the partisans (probably after reusing all the spare parts) and armed the L6/40 that they deployed in Alba. The two other L6s found in Ciriè were probably left in Turin where they were scrapped or given for spare parts to the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’.

From the testimony of Walter Cagolato, captured by the partisans of the Divisione Garibaldi ‘Fratelli Varalli’ (English: Garibaldi Division – Italian Communist Partisans), due to poor reliability, the Lupo tank was abandoned in a tramcar depot in Milan and probably taken by the training company of the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’.

Battaglione ‘Fulmine’

The Battaglione ‘Fulmine’ (Fulmine – Lightning) seems to have used a Carro Armato L6/40 after early 1945. A soldier enlisted in the unit had been a tank crew member before the armistice. He was instructed to go to Turin from Gorizia with a truck to recover a light tank directly from the FIAT depots (which had probably repaired it).

The first part of the task was performed quietly and the tank was taken from the FIAT depots in Turin without problems. The second part of the trip was done during the night to avoid being targeted by Allied air attacks. Due to the weight of the tank, it needed to be unloaded from the truck to cross bridges all along the return trip of about 500 km long. During the crossing of the Piave river, probably between Treviso and Venezia, the unloaded truck was hit by machine gun bursts and put in flames. The partisans that shot at it then quickly disappeared.

The tank crew member was forced to continue the about 130 km journey from Piave to Gorizia on tracks. The tank reached Gorizia, but with the tracks and suspension damaged due to the long trip.

Due to this deterioration and the absence of a truck that could transport it, the tank could not take part in the breakthrough of the Yugoslavian Partisans lines that besieged the town of Tarnova, where the Battaglione ‘Fulmine’ was trapped.

Apart from this, nothing is known about this Carro Armato L6/40, neither its provenance, its camouflage, or its final destiny.

Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana

Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’

The Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’, the best-equipped Repubblica Sociale Italiana unit, was equipped with at least two L6/40s, probably found in or near Turin city.

One of the vehicles took part in the parade of the unit in the city of Turin on 23rd May 1944 and only one vehicle was shown on 24th July 1944 in the city of Milan during a parade to celebrate the anniversary of the attempted coup against fascism. On that occasion, the unit’s banner was placed on the raised antenna of the L6/40.

The two tanks took part in some anti-partisan operations in Piemonte in autumn 1944. When the Battaglione ‘Lupo’ of the Xª Divisione MAS left Milan for the Eastern front of the Italian peninsula, the Compagnia Addestramento (English: Training Company) of the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ in Milan probably recovered the L6/40.

Not much is known about the Compagnia Addestramento of Milan. After the Great Partisan Insurrection, on 26th April 1945, the unit left the city of Milan with 4 armored cars and 10 medium and light tanks.

Of the 10 tanks, one was surely a Semovente L40 da 47/32, another was an M13/40 and another one was an M15/42. Unfortunately, the book …Come il Diamante does not mention other vehicles, apart from the armored cars. There were two AB43s and probably two AB41s.

It is possible to assume that the Carro Armato L6/40 in running condition of the Battaglione ‘Lupo’ was recovered by the training unit of ‘Leonessa’. It is not known if it was put in service again or if it was cannibalized for mechanical parts for the Semovente L40 da 47/32.

Distaccamento Operativo di Piacenza

The Distaccamento Operativo di Piacenza (English: Piacenza Operative Detachment) was created on 20th August 1944 with 50 soldiers and two AB41 armored cars under the command of Lieutenant Giovanni Ferraris from the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’. A Carro Armato L6/40 was deployed at an unspecified date.

A document from 20th January 1945 claims that the Distaccamento Operativo di Piacenza had 7 officers, 113 NCOs and soldiers, a Carro Armato M15/42, a Carro Armato L6/40, 3 L3 light tanks, 2 AB41 armored cars, 2 armored vehicles, 3 light lorries, 10 motorcycles, two trucks and a staff car.

The unit helped to defend the few Italian oil wells present in the Piacenza countryside. It also carried out escort missions when the oil barrels were sent from the oil wells to Milan, where the Oleoblitz company refined oil into fuel.

In a report from 17th March 1945, the garrison of the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ in Piacenza had in its workshops two non-operational L6/40s.

On 25th April, the Great Partisan Insurrection began in Piacenza as well, but the strong Nazi-Fascist force in the area meant that the partisan assault was slowed down. After a battle with US soldiers and tanks in the area south of the city, on the night of 26th April, the Fascist soldiers destroyed their depot to prevent ammunition, armored vehicles and fuel from failing in partisan hands.

It is not clear if the second L6/40 was totally unusable and for this reason it was blown up or if, between 17th March and 26th April 1945, it was put into service again and then destroyed or abandoned during fighting against partisans in the days before the Great Partisan Insurrection.

The other L6/40 tank that was still under repair and avoided destruction was probably abandoned the next morning, when the majority of Fascist forces left the city with all the operational vehicles.

Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ in Valtellina

During the last months of war, the Fascist forces planned to retreat to Valtellina, a valley in Lombardia near the Swiss border. There, the Fascists could make their last stand, allowing Benito Mussolini to flee to Switzerland to avoid the consequences of his failed dictatorship.

A small unit of the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ was sent to the Tirano area (in Valtellina) in mid April 1945. The unit was composed of a Carro Armato L6/40 and two armored cars, of which at least one was a Carrozzeria Speciale su SPA-Viberti AS43.

On 27th April 1945, about 1,000 soldiers from the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’, Compagnia ‘Pesaro’ of the Battaglione M ‘Guardia del Duce’, a few soldiers from the XV Brigata Nera ‘Sergio Gatti’ (English: 15th Black Brigade), from the XXXIX Brigata Nera ‘Raffaele Manganiello’ (English: 39th Black Brigade), the Brigata Nera Autonoma ‘Giovanni Gentile’ (English: Autonomous Black Brigade), the Fascist border guards from the III Legione GNR di Frontiera (English: 3rd GNR Border Guard Legion) and a battalion of French militias were ready to join Mussolini while fleeing north.

The commander of this column was the former commander of the 2° Battaglione (English: 2nd Battalion) of the III Legione GNR di Frontiera, Major Vanna. He planned to reach Sondrio, where they were to meet Mussolini and all escape to Switzerland.

The column was fully motorized with the last few operational trucks of the Fascist units and the armored vehicles of ‘Leonessa’. There were also some trucks armed with 20 mm automatic cannons for close defense.

When the Fascist forces tried to reach Sondrio, they were hit by partisan bursts, blocking them in an open field near the city of Tirano, 200 meter away from the Santuario della Madonna (English: Sanctuary of Virgin Mary).

The Carro Armato L6/40, the only tracked vehicle of the column, was used as a shield, proceeding slowly from the blocked trucks to the sanctuary, where the Fascist soldiers could open fire against the partisan positions.

After some hours of fighting, the Fascist commander, Maj. Vanna, understood that it was impossible to reach Sondrio by breaking through the partisan lines. Maj. Vanna retreated his forces to the Caserma ‘Luigi Torelli’ barracks in Tirano. He chose 250 soldiers out of the 1,000 available and tried to reach Sondrio by passing on the shores of the Adda River. The rest of the soldiers and the three armored vehicles tried to resist the partisan forces, but surrendered the next day after heavy fighting.

Camouflage and Markings

The Carri Armati L6/40s of the 31° Reggimento Fanteria Carrista were painted in a three-tone camouflage. The original Kaki Sahariano (English: Saharan Khaki) was partially covered by dark green and dark brown spots.

On the tanks used before the Armistice, white circles were painted on the sides of the superstructure and some cartoons on the front plate. After the Armistice, the white circles were covered with white bands that were also painted on the front part of the transmission cover. They did not cover the cartoons on the frontal plate. Two vehicles are known, one with plate ‘Regio Esercito 5484’ and one with plate ‘Regio Esercito 5488’ with a lion face.

Nothing is known about the camouflage of the L6/40 of the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leoncello’ and of the Battaglione ‘Fulmine’. They were probably in the original Kaki Sahariano monochrome desert camouflage.

At least one of the Carri Armati L6/40s of the Battaglione ‘Lupo’ was painted with dark green spots on the original Kaki Sahariano. On the turret sides, it had a wolf face, the symbol of the battalion, painted inside a black or red rectangle.

Unfortunately, the sources that speak about the rectangle color are discordant. Two veterans of the ‘Lupo’ Battalion give different versions, one with a red rectangle and one with a black rectangle. It is possible they may be talking about two different vehicles

The Carri Armati L6/40 of the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ had the standard Kaki Sahariano monochrome desert camouflage. As a coat of arms, they had an ‘m’ in lowercase italics painted red, which was the symbol of Mussolini. A lictorian beam, the symbol of the Partito Fascista Repubblicano, intersected the ‘m’ transversely, and the acronym GNR was painted in red under it.

After December 1944, the L6/40 tank that remained in Turin had the Kaki Sahariano Chiaro base covered with reddish brown and dark green spots. The vehicle spotted in Valtellina had this camouflage pattern.

Conclusion

The Carro Armato L6/40 was an already obsolete light tank when the Armistice with the Allied forces was signed. Despite this, the tank was deployed by the Germans and by the Fascist forces, who employed all the vehicles not yet captured by the Germans.

Interestingly enough, in the anti-partisan operations in Northern Italy, the tank performed without any particular criticisms. This was also because, until mid-to-late 1944, the partisan forces were equipped only with light firearms that could not penetrate the armor of the L6/40.

Carro Armato L6/40 Specifications
Size (L-W-H)	3.82 x 1.80 x 1.175 m
Weight, battle ready	6.84 tonnes
Crew	2 (driver and commander/gunner)
Engine	FIAT Tipo 18 VT 4-cylinder 68 hp ​​at 2500 rpm with 165 liters tank
Speed	42 km/h
Range	200 km
Armament	One Cannone-Mitragliera Breda da 20/65 Modello 1935 and a 8 mm Breda Modello 1938
Armor	From 40 mm to 6 mm
Service	Less than 10

Sources

I Mezzi Corazzati Italiani della Guerra Civile 1943-1945 – Paolo Crippa – TankMasterSpecial Italian and English Edition Volume 5

I Carristi di Mussolini: Il Gruppo Corazzato “Leonessa” dalla MSVN alla RSI – Paolo Crippa – Witness to war Volume 3

… Come il Diamante. I Carristi Italiani 1943-45 – Marco Nava and Sergio Corbatti – Laran Editions

Battaglione Lupo, Xa Flottiglia MAS 1943-1945 – Guido Bonvicini – Italia Storica Ebook Vol. 41

Italian Social Republic (1943-1945)
Medium Armored Car – At Least 30 Operated

The AB41 was an Italian medium armored car jointly developed by FIAT and Ansaldo for the needs of the Italian Regio Esercito (English: Royal Army) and for the Polizia dell’Africa Italiana (English: Police of Italian Africa) the Italian Colonial Police. During the war, it was mainly employed by the Regio Esercito, which used more than 500 AB41s of the 667 produced until 1945.

After the Italian armistice of 8th September 1943, the armored cars, as the rest of the Italian armored fighting vehicles, were captured by the Germans. The Germans reused them in the Balkans, France, and Italy itself, while a few were recovered by the newly founded Esercito Nazionale Repubblicano (English: National Republican Army) and the Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana (English: National Republican Guard) of the Repubblica Sociale Italiana (English: Italian Social Republic).

Context

After the fall of Tunisia in May 1943, the Italian Fascist Government began to fragment due to the loss of public support caused by the continued military defeats and the hardships civilians had to endure.

On 25th July 1943, the King of Italy Vittorio Emanuele III alongside some Royal Army officers and Fascist politicians took over control of the country. Benito Mussolini was arrested on charges of having dragged Italy into the war.

For more than two months, the Kingdom of Italy continued the war fighting the Allied powers, but under a new Monarchical government with Marshal Pietro Badoglio as prime minister.

In late August, Badoglio initiated negotiations for an armistice with the Allies. On 3rd September 1943, the Cassibile Armistice was signed and it went into effect at 19:42 on 8th September 1943.

Italian troops were taken by surprise by the Armistice announcement and were left without orders while the German troops expected these actions and quickly activated Fall Achse (English: Operation Axis). Between 8th to 23rd September 1943, German soldiers managed to kill 29,000 Italian soldiers and captured more than a million others. In addition, the Germans captured over 1.3 millions of rifles, machine guns and submachine guns, 17,058 mortar, anti-tanks, anti-aircrafts and field artillery pieces, 16,631 trucks, cars and motorcycles, and 977 armored fighting vehicles.

During Fall Achse, on 12th September 1943, a group of German Fallschirmjäger performed a daring action, Fall Eiche (English: Operation Oak), freeing Mussolini from prison. On 23rd September 1943, with German backing, he created, in the German-occupied Italian territories, the Repubblica Sociale Italiana or RSI.

Design

The Medium Armored Car AutoBlindo Modello 1941 (English: Armored Car Model 1941), or more simply AB41, was the most produced Italian armored car model during the war with 667 built. It was arguably one of the best-armored cars produced during the Second World War.

The AB41 was armed with a 20 mm Cannone-Mitragliera Breda 20/65 Modello 1935 automatic cannon produced by Società Italiana Ernesto Breda per Costruzioni Meccaniche (English Italian Ernesto Breda Company for Mechanical Constructions). Secondary armament consisted of two 8 mm Breda Modello 1938 medium machine guns, one coaxial and one in a spherical support on the rear of the vehicle.

It was developed as a long range reconnaissance vehicle and had an operational range of 400 km thanks to the 195 liters of petrol and a maximum velocity on roads of 80 km/h. The AB41 had a double driving position, one at the front and one at the rear, allowing the armored car to be driven by two different drivers that could take the control only by lowering a lever. This permitted this fast armored car to quickly disengage from an enemy skirmish in narrow mountain roads and village roads. had an all-drive and all-steering wheels system, giving the vehicle excellent off-road performance.

The crew was composed of a commander/gunner, front driver, rear driver, and machine gunner/radio operator. The AB41 was also equipped with a powerful 60 km range radio with a 7 meters fully extended antenna on the left side.

Operational use

Esercito Nazionale Repubblicano

The Regio Esercito, which had ceased to exist on 8th September, was replaced by the new Esercito Nazionale Repubblicano or ENR . The Esercito Nazionale Repubblicano had some AB41 armored cars in its ranks.

The first action of these armored cars for the RSI was in September 1943, when the ENR had not yet officially been created. Tank crews of the 31° Reggimento Fanteria Carrista (English: 31st Tank Crew Infantry Regiment), loyal to Benito Mussolini, took part in the actions of the 118. Jäger-Division (English: 118th Light Infantry Division) in Podgorica (modern-day Montenegro). These armored cars were the survivors of the XL Battaglione Bersaglieri Corazzato.

The armored cars were then assigned to the Plotone Autoblindo (English: Armored Car Platoon) and used in escort and patrol roles.

Gruppo Corazzato ‘San Giusto’

Four AB41s were used by the Gruppo Squadroni Corazzati ‘San Giusto’ (English: Armored Squadrons Group). These armored cars were delivered by the Germans in Gorizia and were assigned to the Plotone Autoblindo of the Squadrone Comando (English: Command Squadron. The AB41s were used by the unit to escort columns of military trucks or in anti-partisan operations.

On 31st May 1944, two armored cars were destroyed in a partisan ambush near Dobraule di Santa Croce. A FIAT 665NM Scudato armored personnel carrier was also destroyed in this engagement. The last two AB41s were still in service on 8th April 1945, when the last existing documents of the unit mention the armored cars in its ranks. One was deployed at Ruppa to help the local garrison, while the last one was subject to problems, probably lacking a trained crew, and was left in storage at the unit’s headquarters in Mariano del Friuli.

Raggruppamento Anti Partigiani

The Raggruppamento Anti Partigiani or RAP (English: Anti-Partisans Group) was created in summer 1944 in Turin. It consisted of four Battaglioni ‘Arditi’ (English: Arditi Battalions – Arditi in Italian literally means ‘The Daring [Ones]’). The 1° Battaglione had Bersaglieri (Italian assault infantry) and the 2° Battaglione had Alpini (mountain troops). There were also an artillery group, a cavalry group, and an engineer battalion. This unit had the task of fighting the partisans in the valleys near the city of Turin. The Partisans had managed to increasingly strike at valuable targets during the night. They also contacted factory workers with the aim of organizing strikes and protests.

In late 1944, the unit was equipped with an AB41 delivered by the German Aufstellung-Süd (English: Lineup-South). It was taken from the Deposito di Caselle (English: Caselle Depot) and assigned to the Compagnia Esplorante (English: Reconnaissance Company) of the Group. On 2nd November 1944, the RAP, together with the AB41, participated in the assault on the city of Alba, which was occupied by a substantial Partisan force.

The fate of the RAP’s armored car is unknown. It was probably present during the fight against the Partisans in Cisterna d’Asti on 6th April 1945 where the unit lost its L6/40 due to a mechanical failure and a Lancia Lince captured intact by the Partisans. Some sources claim that the AB41 was destroyed in that fight, while others claim that during that action against the Partisans, only an AB41 was damaged and it was one of the ‘Leonessa’.

During the Partisan uprising in the city of Turin, the Raggruppamento Anti Partigiani was deployed to defend the city and their L3 light tanks were used, but nothing is known about the armored car.

The surviving vehicles of the unit left Turin the night between 27th and 28th April 1945, reaching Strambino Romano where they surrendered to US troops on 5th May.

Some damaged vehicles were left in the barrack of Via Arsenale in Turin, the unit’s headquarters.

Other ENR Usage

The Nucleo Esplorante (English: Reconnaissance Squad) of the Plotone Cavalleria da Combattimento (English: Combat Cavalry Platoon) of the Raggruppamento ‘Cacciatori degli Appennini’ received an unknown number of armored cars, some sources claim six, of which one was probably an AB41, while the others were of German origin. The 27° Deposito Misto (English: 27th Mixed Depot) in Verona had 2 AB41s, but their service is unknown.

Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana and Camicie Nere

On 23rd September 1943, together with the Esercito Nazionale Repubblicano, the Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana or GNR was also created. This was, theoretically, a military police corps but, in fact, acted as a second-line army countering the actions of partisan units.

On 26th June 1944, the Corpo Ausiliario delle Squadre d’Azione delle Camicie Nere (English: Auxiliary Corps of the Action Squads of the Black Shirts), better known as the ‘Camicie Nere’ (English: Black Shirt) or ‘Brigate Nere’ (English: Black Brigades), were constituted and put under the control of the Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana. These units were assigned to each city to maintain public order and to counter partisan actions.

These second-line units, due to the lack of vehicles and the desperate situation of the Axis troops in the last years of war, were equipped with few armored vehicles.

Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’

The Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ (English: Armored Group) was an exception. In fact, this GNR unit, first based in Brescia and, from January 1944, in Turin, was the largest of the Repubblica Sociale Italiana between 1943 and 1945. It grouped as many as 18 AB41s in its ranks in the 18 months of its existence. Some sources claim that the ‘Leonessa’ also had some AB43s, but there is no photographic evidence of this.

On 25th February 1945, the unit still had 12 armored cars in service. It is not known if this refers only to the AB41s or to all the armored wheeled vehicles, including the Carrozzeria Speciale su SPA-Viberti AS43.

The 18 armored cars were recovered from various military depots from late September 1943 to January 1944. They were used in the various detachments of the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ in Emilia, Lombardia, Romagna and Piemonte. The AB41s deployed in Lombardia were used to escort columns of supply trucks from Milan to Bergamo and Brescia and to patrol the Valtellina roads to prevent Partisan ambushes and sabotage.

In Piacenza, the 3ª Compagnia of the ‘Leonessa’ arrived on 2nd January 1945, with 7 officers, 113 NCOs and soldiers, an M15/42 medium tank, an L6/40 light tank, 3 L3 light tanks, 2 AB41s, and 10 armored personnel carriers. The unit was tasked with defending the few oil wells of the Azienda Generale Italiana Petroli or AGIP (English: General Italian Oil Company) and supported anti-partisan operations in Val Trebbia and in the Piacenza Apennines. In February, the 4ª Compagnia, with 2 AB41s, was also sent to Piacenza as a reinforcement for the 3ª Compagnia.

One of these armored cars was deployed at Valleia, together with a platoon of the 4ª Compagnia, under the command of Sub-Brigadier Nazzarri. This unit was forced to retreat in late-February, joining the garrison of Gropparello. In Gropparello, 24 soldiers of the 3ª Compagnia of the ‘Leonessa’, together with the soldiers of the platoon from Valleia, were surrounded by partisans. These attacked the medieval castle where the Fascists had barricaded themselves with a 47/32 cannon, forcing them to surrender. When the soldiers surrendered on 2nd March 1945, the Partisans captured the AB41 and an armored personnel carrier.

On 4th March 1945, some reinforcements arrived in Gropparello and the Partisans were forced to run away and the vehicles were recaptured. On 20th April 1945, the general order to retreat further north was received, and all the garrisoned cities were abandoned with the help of trucks escorted by an AB41, bringing the remnants of the unit to Piacenza.

From 15th April 1945, the garrisons farthest from Piacenza were evacuated to avoid partisan attacks. The only AB41 of the ‘Leonessa’ in working condition in the Piacenza region was deployed to escort the trucks that transported the soldiers to Piacenza. The armored car was commanded by Legionnaire Medoro Minetti.

At some point between 16th April to 20th April, the armored car was attacked by a US ground attack plane. The armored car hid itself in a bomb crater on the road and the Allied plane, after a brief attack, returned back from where it came. When the airplane disappeared, the armored car restarted its journey, but when coming out of the crater, the differential broke. The armored car was then towed by a truck to Piacenza, where the mechanics had to inform Legionnaire Minetti that the damage was not repairable in Piacenza because of a lack of spare parts.

On 23rd April 1945, when the Fascist forces left Piacenza, Minetti left the city on board his armored car, towed by the other AB41 of the ‘Leonessa’. It arrived in San Rocco al Porto where it waited for three days to be loaded in a ferry that transported the armored car on the other side of the Po River. On the night of 25th and 26th April 1945, Legionnaire Minetti received the order to return to Piacenza with his armored car. He reached the city, now towed by a Lancia 3Ro heavy duty truck, at 07:00 on 26th April.

In the province of Turin, where the majority of the armored cars (10) were deployed, some AB41s supported dozens of Italian or German anti-partisan operations in the Val di Susa. They supported the attack on De Gaulle’s Free French forces, which tried to occupy the 3,130 m high Batteria dello Chaberton fort on Mont Chaberton.

In March 1944, an AB41 of the ‘Leonessa’ was used, together with about 500 soldiers of the Battaglione ‘Debica’ of the Italienische Waffenverbände der SS (English: Italian SS Weapons Units), against the Partisan’s IV Brigata Partigiana ‘Pisacane’ (English: 4th Partisan Brigade) in the Valle Lucerna, near Pinerolo.

On 21st March 1944, an AB41 commanded by Second Lieutenant Valerio Cappelli, with driver Equilio Cerri, and radio operator Mario Bonomi, and 50 militants of the ‘Leonessa’ were deployed in Val Chisone and Val Pellice on anti-partisan duties. During a patrol, the Partisans managed to separate the armored car and a medium tank (the only two vehicles of the patrol) from the rest of the soldiers using an explosion. The vehicles were then attacked with hand grenades and improvised explosive devices thrown from above. The AB41 was hit and fell, ending up in a creek. The three crew members died in the incident.

After March 1944, the 1ª Compagnia and 2ª Compagnia, deployed in Turin, operated almost every day against the Partisan brigades in the sector, breaking through their roadblocks towards the Valle d’Aosta and Valle di Susa.

Between 10th and 18th May 1944, an AB41 commanded by Second Lieutenant Raffaele Cocomello was deployed during Operazione Habicht, an anti-partisan operation between Val Susa, Val Chisone, and Valle del Sangone. The armored car was under the orders of Oberstleutenant Weiss, the commander of the SS-Polizei-Regiment 15 (English: 15th SS Police Regiment), and was used as a liaison and escort vehicle.

The first public appearance of the unit was on 23rd May 1944, when some vehicles of the ‘Leonessa’, including at least one AB41, participated in a parade from the Porta Nuova train station to Piazza Castello, Turin’s main square together with other Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ equipment.

On 28th May 1944, a vast anti-partisan operation in the area north of Turin started, called Operation Hamburg, and the ‘Leonessa’ took part in it. A company-seized force of the Gruppo Corazzato, with two tanks and two armored cars (models not specified), were deployed.

In June 1944, the continuous arrival of volunteer soldiers and the recovery of armored vehicles allowed the reorganization of the two companies. The Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ was now composed of the 1ª Compagnia Carri (English: 1st Tanks Company) equipped with tanks, 2ª Compagnia Autoblindo (English: 2nd Armored Car Company) equipped with armored cars and autoprotette (equivalent for English: armored personnel carriers), and the 3ª Compagnia Arditi (English: 3rd Arditi Company) with infantry.

A company-seized force with 5 tanks of the ‘M’ series and 10 AB41s was used to reoccupy Asti and Val d’Ossola in Autumn 1944. In the same period, an AB41 was detached to Novara, where it was assigned temporarily to the Brigata Nera ‘Cristina’ that extensively used the vehicle in anti-partisan actions.

A propaganda film of Italian Istituto Luce showing Fascist and Italian SS soldiers from the 29. Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS (italienische Nr. 1) (English: 29th SS Mechanized Division Division (Italian No. 1)) during on 1st June 1944. It also shows one of the six PaK 40 anti-tank gun of the Brigata SS Italiana (English: Italian SS Brigate) of Pinerolo.

The AB41 shown in the video was from the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ as the coat of arms on the turret rear suggests.
In the book ‘…Come il Diamante, I Carristi Italiani 1943-45’ the authors Marco Nava and Sergio Corbatti mention that this video was taken during Operazione ‘Nachtigall’ (English: Operation Nightingale) anti-partisan operation.

Between 29th July and 20th August 1944, two AB41s and some tanks were used in an anti-partisan operation between Val Susa, Val Chisone, and Valle del Sangone, called Operazione ‘Nachtigall’. An AB41 was used against a roadblock in Perrero on 7th August 1944 created by the Partisans to block the road for the Germanasca Valley to the ‘Leonessa’ units supported by the Kampfgruppe ‘Celebrano’ of the 29. Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS (italienische Nr. 1).

From 5th September to 15th September, Operazione Straßburg took place. When the operation was completed, an AB41 was placed at the town hall of Viù, near Germaniano in Val di Susa. The armored car had been immobilized by the launch of improvised explosive devices and the wounded and terrified crew had barricaded themselves inside. Only the intervention of the Italian SS allowed the soldiers to be evacuated and hospitalized, but the car could not be repaired.

A platoon from the 1ª Compagnia of Turin, with 2 AB41s and three M14/41 medium tanks from the 2ª Compagnia, were used during the reoccupation of Alba, near Cuneo, on 2nd November 1944.

On 21st February 1945, two AB41s, 2 M13/40 medium tanks, and some armored personnel carriers took part in an anti-partisan operation in the Villanova d’Asti region. The last major clashes between the ‘Leonessa’ and the Partisans took place in March 1945.

One of these actions, started on 6th March 1945, had the objective of reoccupying the towns of Cisterna d’Asti and Santo Stefano Roero, captured in the previous days by the Partisans that also sabotaged the Genoa to Turin railway.

In Santo Stefano Roero, between 8th and 9th March, a column composed of a platoon of the 1ª Compagnia Carri and two platoons of the 3ª Compagnia Arditi equipped with a SPA-Viberti AS43 Autoprotetta and one AB41 (in the book 1^ Brigata Nera “Ather Capelli”: Una documentazione writer Marco Nava mentions the presence of two AB41s of the unit, maybe one was of the Raggruppamento Anti Partigiani).

Some units from the Raggruppamento Anti Partigiani with a Lancia Lince scout car, about 80 militiamen of the 1ª Brigata Nera ‘Ather Capelli’ (English: 1st Black Brigade), a company of the Battaglione Ordine Pubblico (English: Public Order Battalion) of Turin, the Compagnia Arditi Sciatori (English: Arditi Skiers Company), and 25 soldiers of the Distaccamento ‘Umberto Cumero’ of the Xª Divisione MAS (English: 10th MAS Division) for a total of about 350 soldiers and auxiliaries was ambushed by about 1,000 Partisans. The partisan units were: 6ª Divisione Autonoma Alpina ‘Asti’ (English: 6th Alpine Mountain Division) with three brigades, Divisione Matteotti ‘Tre Confini’ (Matteotti Division) composed of socialist Partisans with five brigades, and 103ª Brigata Garibaldi ‘Rolandino’ (English: 103rd Garibaldi Division) composed of communist Partisans.

The AB41 commanded by Lieutenant Fossati was the leading vehicle of the column, followed by a FIAT 666NM truck with a trailer full of militiamen, Lieutenant Berneschi’s SPA-Viberti AS43 Autoprotetta, and some more trucks full of soldiers and a Lancia Lince scout car of the Raggruppamento Anti Partigiani.

The bullets pierced one of the AB41’s tires, while the FIAT 666NM behind was set alight, with many of the soldiers on board killed. Lieutenant Fossati was wounded by a ricocheting bullet as he got out of the armored car trying to repair the pierced tire. In the afternoon, with the help of some artillery pieces of the RAP which had arrived from Turin, the two towns were occupied by the Fascist forces. In the fighting on 8th March, 9 Fascist soldiers were killed and 32 were wounded, while the Partisans suffered only minor losses.

On 23rd March 1945, the AB41s took part in the last Fascist parade in Turin’s streets. They shared the fate of the Fascist troops in the city. After 24th April 1945, some tanks were deployed to protect strategic points in the city, while the armored cars were used to patrol the streets and as a reserve to launch counterattacks. On 26th April 1945, the Partisans attacked the city, occupying the town hall, the railway stations, some manufacturing plants, and the Prefecture of Turin, which was protected by two M13/40 tanks and an AB41.

Tanks and armored cars in the city were used to counterattack the Partisan forces. Around 18:00 the same day, 4 tanks, 3 armored cars (models unknown), a platoon of the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’, and one of the I Brigata Nera ‘Ather Capelli’ attacked and recaptured the barracks on Cernaia Street, the headquarters of the Black Brigade. The intervention of an ‘M’ series tank and an AB41 armored car made it possible to regain control of the town hall and free Podestà (Major) Michele Fassio. For the rest of the night, two armored cars (again, the models are unknown) and 5 tanks continued to patrol the part of the city still in Fascist hands. It was clear that it was impossible to repel the Partisans, so the Fascist command in Turin decided to resist to the bitter end, hoping for the arrival of Anglo-American troops to surrender to them.

On 27th April 1945, an armored car escorted a truck of the 1ª Brigata Nera ‘Ather Capelli’ to the Casa Littoria, the headquarters of the Italian Fascist Party of Turin, at Carlo Alberto Street number 10. There, a group of Avanguardisti of the ‘Fiamme Bianche’ (English: White Flames) had barricaded themselves in for unknown reasons. The Avanguardisti were 14 to 18 years olds who voluntarily joined the RSI troops but, being too young, were not assigned to front line units. The armored car (of unknown model) managed to provide adequate supporting fire, helping evacuate all the young men from the building, escorting them to safety at the Caserma Cernaia barrack.

The situation worsened by the minute so, at 01:40 on April 28th 1945, all the surviving Fascist forces in the city, about 5,000 soldiers, gathered in Piazza Castello and fled towards Lombardia to gather at the “Ridotto Alpino Repubblicano” (English: Republican Alpine Gathering). The protection of the column of trucks was entrusted to the tanks and armored cars of the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’. The column reached Valtellina and waited with about 10,000 more men until 5th May 1945, when they surrendered to Anglo-American troops.

Two of the Gruppo Corazzato’s armored cars were captured by the Partisans in the Caserma ‘Cavalli’ barrack on 1st May 1945, along with a medium tank and a P26/40.

Other GNR Units

Two AB41s were deployed to Brescia and then, on 26th April 1945, they reached Bergamo, where the Batteria Leggera Motorizzata (English. Light Motorized Battery) was deployed. One of the two armored cars broke its rear axle shaft and it was impossible to repair it in a short time, so it was set on fire by its crew. The surviving armored car (which some veterans claim was an AB43) joined the column that had to reach Valtellina from Bergamo, where all the forces still faithful to Mussolini would form the last resistance to the Allied forces. During the night march (in order to avoid Allied air attacks) the AB lost the rest of the column and reached Como, where it was blocked and captured by the Partisans.

The Comando Provinciale della Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana (English: Provincial Command of the GNR) in Varese had in its ranks an AB41 armored car recovered somewhere in its territory by the commander of the Compagnia Comando (English: Company Command), Captain Michaud. Used to escort convoys, in September 1944, it was meant to be used in an anti-partisan operation in Val d’Ossola, but it was unable to because of a mechanical failure, brought back to Varese for repairs, and then given to another GNR unit.

In the first months after September 1943, the Battaglione ‘M’ ‘9 Settembre’ (English: ‘M’ Battalion 9th September), one of Mussolini’s most loyal units (they fought after 9th September 1943 along with the Germans), had in its ranks an AB41. During its operations with the Bansen Battalion of the 2. Regiment of the Panzergrenadier-Division Brandenburg, another 5 AB41 armored cars were put in service with this unit. The unit was used by the Germans as an anti-partisan unit in the rear of the Gustav Defensive Line.

Afterward, it was sent to the rear of the Ortona, where it carried out more anti-partisan activities. Before the transfer to the province of Macerata, the Battalion was formally disbanded from the Brandenburg Division and officially accepted in the Republican Army of the RSI with the denomination of I° Battaglione ‘M’ Camicie Nere ‘IX Settembre’ (English: 1st M Black Brigade Battalion). In the Marche region, the unit established its headquarters in Camerino and carried out some counter-partisan operations together with Kampfgruppe Hettinger of the 3. Regiment of the Panzergrenadier-Division Brandenburg.

After the breakthrough at Cassino, the unit withdrew and, passing through Pesaro and Castrocaro, reached Val d’Aosta on 20th September. After a short operational period, the Battalion followed the destiny of the Brandenburg Division, on which it still depended, and fought for the defense of the Reich in East Prussia until January 1945. The armored cars were destroyed by Allied ground attack planes near Vittorio Veneto during the return to Italy on 29th and 30th April 1945.

The Brigata Nera Mobile ‘Attilio Pappalardo’ (English: Mobile Black Brigade) of Bologna had four AB41s assigned to the Compagnia Corazzata ‘Tupin’ commanded by Captain Cortonesi. During 1944, the streets of Emilia Romagna were crossed weekly by German and Italian convoys heading to the front and were threatened by attacks and ambushes. The brigade kept the roads safe and had the reputation of being the most ruthless Black Brigade in Italy.

In late summer 1944, 2 AB41s of the Black Brigade, under Cortonesi’s command, were deployed in Novara to act as personal bodyguards of Prefect Vezzalini. On 25th April 1945, the part of the ‘Tupin’ (in Emilian dialect Mouses) deployed in Novara tried to reach Como with 2 AB41s and a truck. They attempted to reach Mussolini’s column of vehicles towards Valtellina, but were blocked by Partisans on a narrow mountain road.

Camouflage and Markings

The AB41s of the Repubblica Sociale Italiana in some cases received some particular camouflages. The Gruppo Corazzato ‘San Giusto’ covered the original Kaki Sahariano Chiaro (English: Light Saharan Khaki) monochrome scheme of its armored cars with medium brown and dark green wavy stripes.

The Raggruppamento Anti partigiani covered its armored car with a similar three-tone scheme but with different types of stripes and with a small flag of the Repubblica Sociale Italiana on the superstructure’s side.

The Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ AB41s were painted in Kaki Sahariano Chiaro until mid-1944 when they were repainted with a three-tone camouflage scheme with dark green and reddish brown spots. The coat of arms was the red ‘m’ intersected by a lictorian beams and with the acronym GNR painted in red. These were applied on the superstructure’s sides, turret rear, and front fenders. When they received the new camouflage scheme, the coat of arms were covered in some vehicles.

The AB41 of the Comando Provinciale della Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana received unusual dark green and reddish brown spots painted on the original khaki camouflage.

Some of the AB41s of the I° Battaglione ‘M’ Camicie Nere ‘IX Settembre’ received a German-style splintered scheme with defined outlined three-tone camouflage. It can be noticed in a few photos, for example, the one of the soldier with the MG42 in front of the armored car. The colors were probably the original Kaki Sahariano Chiaro and gray-green with brown stripes. The numbers on the turret were painted in red with white outlines.

In a photo of 28th March 1944, Lieutenant Colacino, commander of the I° Battaglione ‘M’ Camicie Nere ‘IX Settembre’ poses near an AB41 in the Marche region. The vehicle was painted in standard Kaki Sahariano Chiaro. This makes us presume that not all the armored cars were painted with a German-style camouflage even if we do not have the certainty that this armored car belonged to the unit.

Conclusion

The AB41 medium armored car was a great reconnaissance vehicle that demonstrated its performance also with poorly trained and equipped troops of the Repubblica Sociale Italiana that used it almost exclusively in anti-partisans and escorting operations. The majority of the AB41 armored cars in service with the RSI were recovered from Regio Esercito and were slowly repaired to be used by the new Fascist units loyal to Benito Mussolini.

AB41 specifications
Dimensions (L-W-H)	5.20 x 1.92 x 2.48 m
Total Weight, Battle Ready	7.52 tons
Crew	4 (front driver, rear driver, machine gunner/loader, and vehicle commander/gunner)
Propulsion	FIAT-SPA 6-cylinder petrol, 88 hp with 195 liters tank
Speed	Road Speed: 80 km/h Off-Road Speed: 50 km/h
Range	400 km
Armament	Cannone-Mitragliera Breda 20/65 Modello 1935 (456 rounds) and Two Breda Modello 1938 8 x 59 mm medium machine guns (1992 rounds)
Armor	8.5 mm Hull
Turret	Front: 40 mm Sides: 30 mm Rear: 15 mm
In service with the Repubblica Sociale Italiana	667 in total, unknown in RSI service

Sources

I Carristi di Mussolini – Il Gruppo Corazzato “Leonessa” dalla MVSN alla RSI – Paolo Crippa
… Come il Diamante, I Carristi Italiani 1943-’45 – Marco Nava and Sergio Corbatti
I Mezzi Corazzati Italiani della Guerra Civile 1943-1945 – Paolo Crippa
Italian Armored & Reconnaissance Cars 1911-45 – Filippo Castellano and Pier Paolo Battistelli
1^ Brigata Nera “Ather Capelli”: Una documentazione – Marco Nava

Italian Social Republic (1944-1945)
Self-Propelled Anti-Aircraft Gun – At Least 2 Converted

The Autocannone da 20/70 su ALFA Romeo 430RE was an Italian Second World War improvised Self-Propelled Anti-Aircraft Gun (SPAAG) mounting a 20 mm automatic cannon on the ALFA Romeo 430RE chassis. It was used by the Legione Autonoma Mobile ‘Ettore Muti’ (English: Mobile Autonomous Legion) of the Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana (English: Republican National Guard) in Lombardia and Piemonte near the end of the war.

Its primary task was to escort fascist military convoys between Milan and Turin, defending them from Allied air attacks, and also protecting the convoys from partisan ambushes at a time when they were becoming increasingly frequent.

The Situation of the Repubblica Sociale Italiana after the Armistice

After the Italian Armistice was signed on 8th September 1943, the Italian Regio Esercito (English: Royal Army) was disbanded. The Italian soldiers in the Italian Peninsula independently decided their own fate. Some joined the Esercito Cobelligerante Italiano (English: Co-belligerent Army) under Allied control, others created and joined the first Italian partisan units, while others swore allegiance to the Germans. The soldiers who opposed the German troops in Italy or in the rest of the territories under Italian and German control were killed or captured. Between 8th and 23rd September 1943, about 20,000 Italian troops were killed and over a million Italian soldiers were captured by the Germans.

A coup organized by the Italian king Vittorio Emanuele III di Savoia and some generals loyal to the king had deposed Il Duce Benito Mussolini on 25th June 1943. Mussolini had spent the period of time between his arrest and the Armistice in an Italian prison. On 12th September 1943, he was freed in a daring mission by a group of German Fallschirmjäger commanded by SS-Obersturmbannführer Otto Skorzeny.

Benito Mussolini was then taken to Germany, where he met Adolf Hitler in order to decide the destiny of the rest of Italy and also to recover from his prison experience. Returning to Italy on 23rd September 1943, he created the Repubblica Sociale Italiana or RSI (English: Italian Social Republic) in northern and central Italy, regions that were controlled by the Germans at that moment.

Of the thousands of Italian vehicles captured by the Germans (tanks, armored cars, supply vehicles, artillery pieces, etc), only a few were returned to the new Italian units loyal to Mussolini. This meant that the units needed to equip themselves with vehicles abandoned by the Regio Esercito after the Armistice, with vehicles damaged before the Armistice and abandoned in the military depots after 8th September, or with civilian trucks requisitioned for military necessities.

The Esercito Nazionale Repubblicano, the heir of the Regio Esercito, received the majority of these vehicles, but there were not enough. The Army seems to have received or retrieved less than the 20% of the vehicles it needed.

The Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana, or GNR, was used as a Military Police and to counter partisan actions, with most of its units assigned to the rearguard. It was equipped with an even lower amount of vehicles, although some units were able to equip themselves with many armored fighting vehicles and trucks, such as the Gruppo Corazzato ‘Leonessa’ (English: Armored Group), which managed to acquire around 60 tanks of multiple types, around 20 armored cars and more than a hundred of trucks, cars, and motorcycles.

The Corpo Ausiliario delle Squadre d’Azione delle Camicie Nere (English: Auxiliary Corps of the Action Squads of the Black Shirts), an auxiliary corps used mostly to counter partisan actions, was barely equipped at all. Of the 56 Black Brigades created, only two received armored vehicles, while the other brigades had only civilian or military trucks which the Black Brigades had to armor in an improvised way in civilian workshops.

The majority of the Repubblica Sociale Italiana’s units were only equipped with military or civil trucks that they used as transport vehicles or that they armored themselves or in civilian workshops.

The RSI faced the problem of the Italian partisan units that were present throughout the territory under Nazi-Fascist control and that almost daily struck military convoys or isolated Italian or German garrisons. The RSI also had to face another major threat, the fighters and ground attack aircraft of the U.S. Army Air Force and the British Royal Air Force. These acted almost undisturbed, attacking Italian convoys and other military and civilian targets.

Design

The ALFA Romeo 430 truck

The company now known as Alfa Romeo was founded under the name A.L.F.A. (Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili, English: Anonymous Lombardy Automobile Factory) in Milan on 24th June 1910 . In 1918, it changed its name to ‘ALFA Romeo’ following the acquisition of the company by Engineer Nicola Romeo. The first and largest plant of ALFA Romeo was in Milan, in the ‘Portello’ district, from which it took its name.

The ALFA Romeo 430 (factory designation T.430) was a cab-forward 3.5 tonnes medium-duty truck originally developed for the military. In order to speed up development and save money, it was derived from the Alfa Romeo 800 heavy truck. Its development was approved by the Italian War Ministry on 23rd September 1941.

In early 1942, ALFA Romeo presented the prototype of the T. 430RE (RE for Regio Esercito) to the Centro Studi della Motorizzazione or CSM (English: Center of Motorization Studies). However, it was powered by a 4-cylinder diesel engine developed to be connected to an electrical generator, while the military wanted a gasoline engine.

The first Regio Esercito order was for 400 units, which increased to 600 by the end of 1942. The Italian Regio Esercito insisted on the adoption of a gasoline engine, so the company manager, engineer Ugo Gobbato, ordered the development of a petrol version of the truck which never entered production.

After the armistice of September 1943, the Portello plant stopped the production for some days and the petrol engine version was abandoned. The Regio Esercito order was initially reconfirmed by the Germans. In early November 1943, Germans officers and specialists evaluated the truck and canceled the request.

Thanks to the tenacity of engineer Ugo Gobbato, ex-manager of the FIAT Lingotto plant, furious at this decision, production resumed. He sent a letter to the Reich Ministry of Armaments and Production to defend his project and, for an unknown reason, the Germans reversed their decision and the Portello plant restarted production, building a total of 99 ALFA Romeo 430RE with diesel engines between 1944 and 1945.

After the war, the ALFA Romeo 430 was also produced as a civilian version, with medium trucks, buses, and tractor variants. Production resumed in 1945 and continued for another five years, until 1950.

After the war, the military version was redesignated as ALFA Romeo CM50 (Carro Medio Modello 1950 – Medium Truck Model 1950). The engine was upgraded, increasing the power by about 10% and enlarging the cab, allowing the addition of a berth behind the seats. There was also an increase in the empty weight to 3.7 tonnes. The military version remained in production until 1952. A military all-wheel-drive version was also developed but did not meet with success and the project was abandoned.

Engine and Suspension

The engine of the Alfa Romeo 430 was the Tipo 430. This was a direct injection, 4-cylinder, 5,816 cm³ diesel engine providing 80 hp at 2,000 rpm. The maximum on-road speed of the truck was 65 km/h, while the range was 390 km thanks to the 75 liters tank fixed on the right side of the chassis. The water-cooling system was connected to a 26-liter water tank, while the oil tank capacity was 11 liters.

Fuel consumption was 19 liters for 100 km, remarkably low for the time, thanks to the FB company direct injection system and the use of a Spica PC4C80 T29/0 variable injection pump. The good qualities of the engine, however, hid flaws. The Tipo 430 was derived from a static engine used as a generator. On the truck, it proved inadequate to the rigors imposed by its new role.

The gearbox, with an intermediate reductor, had four forward gears plus the reverse gear.

The front suspension was independent. The main innovation was the adoption of double coil spring suspension and hydraulic shock absorbers. The T430 was the first truck to be equipped with this suspension system. The rear suspension consisted of easy-to-produce leaf springs. The tire dimensions were 7.5 x 20” (19 x 50.8 cm). Photographic evidence shows that the most frequently used on the T430 were the Pirelli Tipo ‘Raiflex’.

The big advantage of the Alfa Romeo 430RE was that it retained the bigger ALFA Romeo 800’s silhouette and they had a high logistic commonality, sharing many spare parts. The two vehicles were distinguishable primarily by the bumpers. The T430 had two-part ones, with the central section cut for the radiator grille, while the T800 had a one piece bumper.

Structure

Like the bigger ALFA Romeo 800 from which it was derived, the ALFA Romeo 430 was a medium truck with a forward cab and right-hand drive.

The RE version differed from the civilian one by the addition of acetylene headlights, a bulb horn, and lacking the triangular placard on the roof of the cab used in the civilian models to indicate the presence of a towing trailer.

The wooden loading bay was 4 m long, 2 m wide, and 0.65 m tall. Only the rear side was foldable and the chassis had a step to facilitate the climb. The T430, with an empty weight of 3.55 tonnes, was homologated to load a cargo of 3.15 tonnes. For the RE variant, it was not rare to see trucks with a load of more than 4 tonnes of cargo. Thanks to the tow hook, the truck could also tow a load not exceeding 6.5 tonnes.

Armament

The main armament of the autocannone was the Cannone-Mitragliera Scotti-Isotta-Fraschini 20/70 Modello 1939 20 mm L/70 anti-aircraft automatic cannon. It was mounted on a Complesso di Puntamento Libero (English: Independent Aiming Support) produced by Elettro Meccanica Societa Anonima or CEMSA (English: Caproni Electro Mechanical Limited Company) and better known as the Complesso di Puntamento Libero Scotti – CEMSA.

Developed in the late 1920s by Engineer Alfredo Scotti as an aeronautical gun, it was never used for this. In 1932, Scotti sold the patent, which was bought by the Swiss company Oerlikon. Scotti’s design was probably studied by engineer Marc Birkigt before developing the 20 mm Hispano-Suiza H.S. 404.

In 1935, the Regio Esercito made a request for a new multipurpose automatic cannon capable of engaging flying targets. At the same time, it had to be able to deal with light armored vehicles. Scotti and the Società Italiana Ernesto Breda per Costruzioni Meccaniche responded to the request with the Cannone Scotti da 20/70 and the Cannone Breda da 20/65 Mod. 1935. After tests, the Breda gun was chosen, while the Royal Army gave a negative review of Scotti’s gun.

In 1938, the Isotta-Fraschini company in Milan bought the patent of the gun and started to update the project. This was presented a year later as the Scotti-Isotta-Fraschini 20/70 Modello 1939. The new gun was bought by the Italian Regia Aeronautica (English: Royal Air Force) and Italian Regia Marina (English: Royal Navy), with a fixed mounting for airfield defense and as an anti-aircraft gun on some Italian warships.

When the war started, the Regio Esercito showed interest in the gun, mainly because Breda could not satisfy the army’s requests and because the Scotti-Isotta-Fraschini gun was less expensive and faster to produce. For the Regio Esercito, the Scotti-Isotta-Fraschini 20/70 Modello 1941 was produced with a wheeled carriage. It was also produced under license by the Officine Meccaniche company or OM (English: Mechanical Workshops), which was known as the Scotti-OM 20/70 Mod. 1941.

The gun was gas-operated and had a theoretical rate of fire of about 500 rounds per minute. However, this dropped to 250 rounds per minute in practice. Its maximum firing range was 5,500 meters against ground targets and 2,000 m against flying targets.

The gun fired the 20 x 138 mm B ‘Long Solothurn’ cartridge. This was the most common 20 mm round, used on 20 mm guns of the Axis forces in Europe, such as the German FlaK 38, Finnish Lahti L-39 anti-tank rifle, and Italian automatic cannons.

The gun was fed by eight 20 mm round feed strips or twelve 20 mm round feed strips loaded by a loader. A more practical 41-round drum magazine also existed. The Scotti-Isotta-Fraschini 20/70 on the CEMSA support was free to rotate 360°, with a maximum elevation of +90°.

Operational Use

The Legione Autonoma Mobile ‘Ettore Muti’ was created on 18th September 1943 as an action squad for anti-partisan duties. On 18th March 1944, it became a legion and was placed under the authority of the Italian Social Republic Ministry of the Interior. It was designated as an Armed Police Force. Questore Francesco Colombo, a fascist infamous for his extremist ideas, was put in charge of the unit.

The legion had in its ranks the 1º battaglione ‘Aldo Resega’ (English: 1st Battalion), 2º battaglione ‘Piero De Angeli’ (English: 2nd Battalion) and the Battaglione di riserva ‘Luigi Russo’ (English: Reserve Battalion). The names given to the battalions were the names of fascist militants killed by the partisans. Another important unit of the legion was the Compagnia Mezzi Pesanti ‘Pietro Del Buffa’ (English: Heavy Vehicles Company) created on 2nd July 1944. Pietro Del Buffa was a Sergeant of the 601ª Compagnia of the Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana killed on 28th December 1943 in Turin.

The unit assimilated the Compagnia Motorizzata (English: Motorized Company) and the Plotone Mezzi Pesanti (English: Heavy Vehicles Platoon) and was commanded by Lieutenant Bonacina.

The Compagnia Mezzi Pesanti ‘Pietro Del Buffa’ was composed of:

• At least two Autocannoni da 20/70 su ALFA Romeo 430RE
• An ALFA Romeo 430RE with a Cannone da 75/13 Modello 1915 on its loading bay
• A SPA 38R towing a Cannone da 75/27 Mod. 1911

There were also three other companies created in February 1945 and subordinated to the ‘Pietro Del Buffa’, the Compagnia Mortai da 81 mm ‘Enrico Maggi’ (English: 81 mm Mortar Company), the Compagnia Mitragliatrici da 20 mm ‘Attilio Da Broi’ (English: 20 mm machine gun Company), and the Compagnia Artiglieria ‘Giuseppe Lucchesi’ (English: Artillery Company).

The Autocannoni da 20/70 su ALFA Romeo 430RE’s crew of seven consisted of a driver, sitting on the right side of the cabin, a vehicle/gun commander sitting on the left side, a gunner, two loaders, and two more soldiers.

In the loading bay, some ammunition wooden crates were placed behind the cab, immediately behind a wooden bench fixed to the floor, where two soldiers were seated. In the middle of the cargo bay was the CEMSA support for the Scotti-Isotta-Fraschini cannon, while on the rear was another wooden bench and more ammunition crates.

The company never operated independently, but in support of the infantry units of the ‘Muti’ Legion or of other Italian units operating in the region. On 14th August, part of the company’s armed vehicles was sent to Varzi, near Pavia in Lombardia, where they had to fight the local partisans together with the Compagnia Speciale ‘Baragiotta-Salines’, another Legione ‘Muti’ unit.

On that occasion, the fascist column was ambushed and immobilized by the partisans in the neighborhood of Pietra Gavina. Unable to continue the operation, the two companies returned back to Varzi. On that occasion, the ALFA trucks armed with 20 mm guns were probably used by the unit.

Another important task that the Compagnia Mezzi Pesanti ‘Pietro Del Buffa’ had to complete was escorting convoys that went from Milan to Turin, two of the most important cities for the Italian fascist faction, or vice versa via the A4 Highway, which was a very busy road. These were not only lorries full of soldiers, ammunition or fuel that passed through it every day, but also trucks loaded with spare parts and other material that kept both the war and civilian industries going.

These were also very easy targets for the fast Allied fighters and ground attack planes, which often machine-gunned convoys on the highway without even encountering anti-aircraft fire.

Vehicles, such as the ALFA Romeo 430RE, armed with high-elevation automatic cannons, were meant to provide effective defense against Allied air attacks. Unfortunately, the fate of these interesting anti-aircraft vehicles is unknown. They were probably destroyed or captured by the partisans during the insurrection in Milan in late April 1945.

The license plates of the vehicles are unknown and it is not known if they had the unit’s coat of arms painted, since the frames of a video of the Istituto Luce showing their appearance during a parade in Milan on 17th December 1944 are of very poor quality.

From what is visible, it is possible to deduce that the two ALFA Romeo 430RE were in the typical monochrome camouflage of the Regio Esercito, the Saharan Kaki. Another interesting detail is the triangular placard on the roof of the cab, which was mounted only on medium and heavy civilian trucks and not on military ones. The vehicles also lack acetylene headlights, so it seems logical to assume that the vehicles were ALFA Romeo 430 trucks produced during the war for the civil market and requisitioned by the fascist troops after the Armistice, given the shortage of vehicles at their disposal.

Conclusion

Although very little is known about these vehicles, it can be assumed that their use to support the troops of the Italian Social Republic against partisan units was effective. Until early 1945, the partisans were too disorganized and poorly armed to respond adequately. Nothing is known about their use as self-propelled anti-aircraft vehicles, but they were definitely far preferable to the nothing the Italian units were usually equipped with.

Dimensions (L-W-H)	5.955 x 2.13 x ~ 2.5 m
Total weight, battle ready	3.8 tonnes
Crew	7 (vehicle commander, driver, gunner and 4 loaders)
Propulsion	ALFA Romeo Tipo 430, Diesel, 4-cylinder, 5,816 cm³, 80 hp at 2,000 rpm
Speed	65 km/h
Range	390 km
Armament	One Cannone-Mitragliera Scotti-Isotta-Fraschini 20/70 Modello 1939
Armor	//
Total production	at least two ALFA Romeo 430RE modified

Sources

Italia 43-45. I blindati di circostanza della guerra civile – Paolo Crippa
Ruote in Divisa, Un Secolo di Veicoli Militari Italiani – Brizio Pignacca

Italian Social Republic (1944-1945)
Armored Truck – 2 Built

After the Italian Armistice was signed on 8th September 1943, Benito Mussolini created, on 23rd September, the Repubblica Sociale Italiana (Italian Social Republic – RSI). In Northern and Central Italy, which was controlled by the Axis, German and Italian troops had about 1,000 trucks in service, quite few considering that the Esercito Nazionale Repubblicano (National Republican Army – ENR) and the Wehrmacht counted about 600,000 soldiers. On 26th June 1944, Mussolini approved the legislative decree no. 446, which had been proposed by Alessandro Pavolini, the secretary of the Partito Fascista Repubblicano (Republican Fascist Party – PFR). This order constituted the Corpo Ausiliario delle Squadre d’Azione delle Camicie Nere (ENG: Auxiliary Corps of the Action Squads of the Black Shirts), simpler known as the ‘Camice Nere’ (Eng: Black Shirt) or ‘Brigate Nere’ (Eng: Black Brigades) under the control of the Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana (National Republican Guard – GNR), the fascist Military Police. The Brigades had the task of fighting in the second line against the partisan groups that carried out sabotage and ambush missions against the Axis mechanized columns. Only two Black Brigades out of 56 received factory-built armored vehicles, while the other brigades were equipped with trucks (military or civil) that they used as transport vehicles or that they armored themselves or in civil workshops.
Idreno Utimpergher, trusted man of Pavolini, was the commander of the XXVI° Brigata Nera “Benito Mussolini” (ENG: 26th Black Brigade), located first in Lucca but, after an Allied offensive, moved to Piacenza in Emilia Romagna. It was composed of over 200 men and was later renamed the XXXVI° Brigata Nera “Natale Piacentini” (ENG: 36th Black Brigade), after the first soldier from the unit that died in action against the partisans. On the order of Idreno, they armored the only working truck of the Brigade (they also had a Fiat 1500) to better engage the partisans, a Lancia 3Ro heavy truck. The transformation of the Lancia 3Ro was ready after a month of work, from September to October 1944. A Rimorchio Unificato Viberti da 15t trailer, normally used to transport tanks, was also armored with salvaged plates. It could be towed behind the armored truck and used as a troop transport.
The armored car was built by the Arsenal of Piacenza, along with another identical one which was used by the XXVIII° Brigata Nera “Pippo Astorri” (Eng: 28th Black Brigade), but the destiny of this second vehicle is unknown. In the Arsenal of Piacenza workshop, two other vehicles were armored, a Ceirano CM 47 and a Fiat 666N that was totally armored and received a turret with a Breda-SAFAT 12.7 mm aerial machine gun, used by the 630° Comando Provinciale (Eng. 630th Provincial Command of the GNR).

The front of the Lancia 3Ro Blindato in Dongo, on 25th of April 1945. Note the armament of the vehicle, with a machine-gun in the front, one on the side (there was another one on the other side), and a cannon in the turret. Also, note the Viberti 15t trailer at the rear. Source: City of Dongo archive

The Lancia 3Ro

The Lancia 3Ro heavy truck was designed in 1937. It was produced from 1938 to 1948 for both the civilian market and the military and up to 1950 in the bus version. In total, 15,222 vehicles were constructed. It was produced in two plants, the Borgo san Paolo plant of Turin and the Bolzano plant.

Lancia was one of the first Italian companies to use diesel propulsion on its trucks, producing the German Junkers 2 cylinder 3,181 cm³ engines under license. This gave a power of 64 hp at 1500 rpm (the Lancia Tipo 89 mounted on Lancia Ro). A 3-cylinder version with a displacement of 4,771 cm³ gave out 95 hp was named Lancia Tipo 90 and mounted on the Lancia Ro-Ro, the predecessor of the 3Ro.

German engines, however, were very expensive, so Vincenzo Lancia, manager of the company, ordered his technicians to develop a new engine, the 5-cylinder inline Lancia Tipo 102 with a displacement of 6,875 cm³, giving out 93 hp at 1860 rpm.

In order to accommodate the new engine, the Lancia 3Ro’s engine hood was lengthened to accommodate the longer engine compared to the earlier licensed Junkers. Its top speed fully loaded was 45 km/h on-road. Its range, with the 135-liter tank of the basic version, was 450 km. The transmission was a license copy of a Maybach one with 4 gears and one reverse.

The civilian version was produced in two series. The 1st had a square engine compartment and vertical radiator grille, while the 2nd had a water-drop shaped radiator grille which was angled back.

There were two standard cabin types, the standard version and the ‘Lungo’ (Eng. Long) version, which, in the civilian version, had a berth behind the seats.

For the civilian versions, the cabins were produced (in a few examples) by Caproni, Cab and Orlandi. For the military versions, the cabins were produced and fitted out only by Viberti.

The Regio Esercito (Royal Italian Army) ordered the vehicle in two versions, the Lancia 3Ro MNP (Militare; Nafta; Pneumatici – Eng. Military; Diesel; Tires), with standard 270×20” tires and the Lancia 3Ro MNSP (Militare; Nafta; SemiPneumatici – Eng. Military; Diesel; SemiTires) with 285×88” rubber tires. These were used during the Second World War in all the campaigns in which the Royal Italian Army participated. Not only the military versions were used, but also the civilian ones. Due to the need for transport vehicles, the army was forced to requisition most of the trucks from the civilians.

The civilian version had a weight of 5,500 kg and a cargo bay of 7.49 m x 2.35 m, with a payload capability of 6,500 kg. The Lancia 3Ro Mnp had a weight of 5,610 kg and a payload capability of 6,390 kg, while the 3Ro MNSP had a weight of 5,890 kg and a payload capability of 6,110 kg.

The Lancia 3Ro MNP version could carry 32 fully equipped soldiers or 7 horses or over 6 tons of materials or ammunition or could tow all types of Italian artillery pieces. Lots of variants were built on the 3Ro MNP chassis, such as a tanker versions for fuel (5000 liters) or for water (one tank of 5000 liters or two of 2000) modified by the Viberti company of Turin, the mobile workshop Mod. 38, an ammunition transporter with 210 90 mm rounds, a bus variant, a command post that was used by Feldmarschall Erwin Rommel and also the famous italian Autocannoni, such as the Autocannone da 90/53 su Lancia 3Ro and 100/17 su Lancia 3Ro. The MNP could carry all the light tanks of the Italian Royal Army on the cargo bay (L3, L6/40 or Semovente L40 da 47/32). The Rimorchio Unificato Viberti 15T (Eng. Viberti Unified Trailer 15 tons) could carry medium tanks of the “M” series and all the Semovente based on their hulls.

Some examples were equipped with a 9.5-ton winch and a 31.5-meter-long steel cable.
The electrical system was a 6 volt one in the first 1611 Lancia 3Ro military vehicles, then replaced by a 12 volt system in the following models. It was limited to a dynamo produced by Magneti Marelli of Sesto San Giovanni, which was used to power the two front lights, the license plate and dashboard lighting, the windscreen wipers and the horn.

This excellent vehicle was still used by the Esercito Italiano (Eng. Italian Army) after the war until 1964, when it was replaced by more modern military trucks.

Design

The vehicle was dubbed “the last armored car of the Duce” and was probably on a Lancia 3Ro MNSP chassis. All the truck’s automotive components were unchanged, including the engine, gears, and transmission. The rear wheels received armor plates, and the radiator had two inclined plates with slits to allow the engine to cool. For the maintenance of the engine, there were two doors on the sides of the cabin, above the front fenders and headlights.
The vehicle received armor 9 mm thick on all sides and a cylindrical single-seater turret that could rotate 360°, which was also fitted with 9 mm thick armor. The vehicle was equipped with three entrances: two doors on the sides and a large rear door at the back that provided access for some of the crew and for the 8 men that could be transported inside the vehicle.
On the sides of the vehicle there was painted the writing “XXXVI° BRIGATA NERA NATALE PIACENTINI LUCCA” and on the doors of the cabin were painted two lions, the symbol of the Lucca city.

Armament

The vehicle was armed with three 8×59 mm machine guns (two Breda 38 and a Breda 37) and a Scotti-Isotta Fraschini 20/70 Mod. 1939 anti-aircraft/anti-tank light automatic cannon. The Breda 37 was mounted on a spherical support on the front plate, on the driver’s left; two Breda 38 machine-guns were also mounted on spherical supports located on the two sides of the vehicle. In the turret was fixed the Scotti-Isotta Fraschini 20/70 Mod. 1939 automatic cannon. The elevation of the gun was very high to allow the use of the gun against aerial targets. The number of cannon and machine guns rounds transported was unknown.

Crew

There were seven crew members. Three were sat in the cabin on seats, namely the driver, the commander/machine gunner, and the machine-gun loader that had an ammunition rack for the 20 round magazines. There were also two side machine-gunners in the body of the vehicle with a gunner in the turret and the loader. Two wooden benches on the sides of the hull seated eight fully armed and equipped soldiers (with the two machine-gunners and the loader). In addition, on the sides were wooden racks of ammunition and two fire extinguishers.

The Lancia 3Ro Blindato being inspected by some civilians in Dongo, 25th April 1945. Note the Viberti trailer. Source: City of Dongo archive

Illustration of the Lancia 3Ro Blindato produced by Yuvnashva Sharma, funded by our Patreon Campaign.

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Operational Use

The vehicle was used from October 1944 up to the first months of 1945 as an anti-partisan patrol armored car. It saw action on 30th December 1944 against a partisan patrol. Between mid-February and early March, the XXXVI° “Natale Piacentini” Black Brigade was moved from Piacenza to Pinerolo in Piedmont. Around 23rd April, the brigade received an order to reach Valtellina in Lombardy.
On the 24th, the “Natale Piacentini”, now armed with this armored vehicle and a Fiat 626 truck armed with a Breda 20/65 Mod. 1935 automatic cannon in the cargo bay, had to escort a column of trucks carrying other Black Brigades towards Milan. At Vercelli, they found themselves involved in a shootout with a partisan brigade; for this reason, the surviving vehicles of the column arrived in Milan in the late afternoon. They were the last fascist vehicles arriving in the city before the insurrection of the following day.
On the morning of April 25, the partisans attacked the major cities of northern Italy still in the hands of the Germans and the fascists. At first, the XXXVI° Brigade was chosen to defend the city, but then it was realized that, thanks to its armored car, the Brigade would have been more useful to escort the Duce, Benito Mussolini, to safety in Switzerland.
On 26th April, the XXXVI° joined a convoy of Republican forces (178 trucks, 4636 soldiers and 346 female auxiliaries) that was moving to Como, where they arrived after lunch. From Como, the brigade and the Lancia 3Ro Blindato moved to Menaggio to escort Benito Mussolini to Merano. During the night of the 26th to 27th April, a column of German Flak vehicles arrived in Menaggio, which, along with the Italian vehicles, resumed the march to Merano with the Lancia at the head of the column. Mussolini, Mrs. Clara Petacci, Alessandro Pavolini and other members of the fascist party were part of the column, transported inside this armored car, along with many documents of the fascist government and Mussolini’s personal baggage.

The Lancia 3Ro Blindato in Dongo, the village where Mussolini was captured by the partisans in April 1945. It is unknown when this photo was taken. Source: web photo
On the morning of the 27th, in Musso, the convoy, led by the Lancia 3Ro Blindato, with all the fascist leaders inside, was stopped on the highway that runs along Lake Como at a checkpoint of the 52ª Brigata Garibaldi “Luigi Clerici” (ENG: 52nd Partisan Brigade). The partisans only allowed the German trucks and FlaK cannons to continue, so Mussolini, dressed as a German soldier, got into a German Opel Blitz which turned onto the road to Merano.
The remaining vehicles, with which the Lancia armored car remained, were moving back when, for unknown reasons, there was a clash. The vehicle fired several machine-gun bursts against the partisans, who responded with rifle fire and several hand grenades. One of these hit the vehicle, damaging one of the two front wheels, immobilizing it while it was trying to retreat. The fascist dignitaries then came out of the vehicle with weapons in hand. During this incident, the driver, Guido Taiti, and vehicle commander Merano Chiavacci were killed, while Pavolini was wounded. Pavolini, along with Idreno Utimpergher and Paolo Zerbino, were captured.
The vehicle was then captured by the partisans and taken to Milan to a foundry, where it was fixed up and placed in the village of Dongo for many years as a symbol of the victory against fascism and in the 60s it was probably demolished.

Conclusions

The vehicle was developed due to the lack of other armored vehicles in Northern Italy. Due to its poor armor, like the SPA-Viberti AS43 built in Turin for the same role, it was not meant to fight against similar vehicles, such as the British Humber armored cars or the American M8 Greyhound; its tasks were patrolling and anti-guerrilla warfare, which it carried out well. This article covered the vehicle used by the XXXVI° Black Brigade “Natale Piacentini” but there were other such vehicles built on the same Lancia 3Ro hull, but produced by other workshops and armed with different armament, such as Breda 20/65 Mod. 1935 automatic cannons, for the XXVIII° “Pippo Astorri” or Solothurn S-1000 anti-tank rifles mounted on a Lancia modified like the Carro protetto trasporto truppa su autotelaio FIAT 626. Some Lancia 3Ro were used to transport troops with armor only on the sides and on the front, like on the Fiat 665 NM Blindato.

A Lancia 3Ro truck with armor in the rear cargo bay, used as a troop transport. Source: Beutepanzer.ru

Specifications
Dimensions (L-W-H)	7.25 x 2.35 x approx. 4 meters
Total weight, battle ready	8 tonnes
Crew	7 + 8 (driver, vehicle commander/machine gunner, 2x gunners, 2x loaders + 8 passengers).
Propulsion	Lancia Type 102 diesel, 5 cylinder
Speed	40 km/h
Range	400 km (250 mi)
Armament	Scotti-Isotta Fraschini 20/70 Mod. 1939 Three 8×59 mm machine guns (two Breda 38 and one Breda 37)
Armor	Aprx. 9 mm
Total production	1 – 5

Sources

Italia 43-45. I blindati di circostanza della guerra civile. Tank master special.
Ricciotti Lazzero “Le Brigate Nere”
“Gli Ultimi in Grigio Verde” di Giorgio Pisanò
Nico Scarlato, I corazzati Di Circostanza Italiani.