My goal is to (hopefully) give a nice overall gameplay and (occasionally) historical summary of each tank, without going into too much detail. I want you to be able to leave each section with a good idea for what to expect while using that vehicle. I also hate Steam guides that are just links to Youtube videos. Call me a boomer but I just prefer this style.

Italy is an awesome tech tree with a lot of unique strengths when compared to the other tech trees. If you haven't at least tried out the early armored cars, you definitely should. They're basically the preview for what Italy is great at.

Its beyond the scope of this guide but its worth mentioning that Italy has extremely good aircraft to run alongside your tanks. They sit firmly in the Jack-of-all-trades category. Other nations will have a singular advantage over you, but you will out perform them in several other categories. Use this to your advantage.

TL;DR

Italy specializes in light, fast, aggressive vehicles that are great for flanking or pushing into early forward positions.

Strengths

• Has some of the fastest vehicles in the game at basically every BR bracket
  
• Strong cannons and APHE (on average)
  
• Strong SPAA (for anti-air duties)
  
• Has both American and German tanks for tech tree filler
  
• Access to excellent aircraft for both CAP or CAS

Weaknesses

• Anti-air has big BR gaps at times
  
• Some Tanks have very strange design choices
  
• The vast majority of tanks are poorly armored and you have no heavy tanks available (without paying GE)
  
• Occasionally tanks in isolated BR's
  
• Italian top tier MBT's have been power crept out of the meta
  
• Alongside Japan and France for worst minor nation BR tax - inflated battle ratings are very painful sometimes

The Hungarian army adds a bunch of natively designed vehicles that follow the Italian theme of "Speed and Firepower". Additionally there are some all-stars from Germany and Russia that show up later to help round out mid to top tier.

The Hungarian sub-tree adds a balanced variety of, speed, firepower, and armor to the Italian tech tree.

Strengths

• Native Hungarian designed vehicles have full reverse gearbox for superior reverse speed
  
• Strong main weapons

Weaknesses

• High tier vehicles are mostly just copy and paste
  
• KF41 is pretty bad

This guide will be focused on realistic battles, and not arcade or sim.

In this section, I will try to outline specific strategies that Italian vehicles can take advantage of. While all vehicles across all tech trees can benefit from the various skills that you'll develop while playing War Thunder, I feel like the following are the most important for getting the most out of Italy.

There are two aspects to map awareness. The first one is the easy one.
Italy has a lot of fast wheeled vehicles. These, predictably, perform best on maps with roads.

Be aware of the terrain when picking your initial vehicle to roll out with. The start of a match lets you leverage your superior speed to get into strong positions uncontested. Sometimes you'll want to capture the point (like in a single cap map). Sometimes you'll want to get into a flanking spot for early kills or a counter flanking route to intercept enemies from doing their sneaky-sneaky plans. You will not be doing any of that if you're on a muddy map and you spawn in a wheeled vehicle.

Try to avoid using your speed to capture the closest point to your spawn. If you're desperate for RP, at least wait for your teammates to get closer so they can get some as well.

Make sure to check the team compositions at the start of the round! They can give you some information about what's going to happen early on in the match.

• Germany

Very quick Puma rushes (very likely to have 2 or 3 people rushing the closest point)
Denying these an early cap prevents early CAS
People will do this even at top tier, so always be prepared for it

• America

A bit slower on average, but even their light tanks have low speed stabilizers and are harder to brawl with
Also have a lot of pintle mounted HMG's which are bad news for you
Watch out for the Chaffee and the Hellcat

• France

Similar speed to America, but stabilizers aren't guaranteed
Also less HMG's
EBR's are very fast and have great cannons

• Russia/UK/Japan/China

Unlikely to get to the point before you can cap it. In higher tier matches you may run into Japanese wheeled IFV's and MGS type vehicles. China also gets their Wumao wagons at high tier, which are slower than you but tricky to kill and very dangerous.
UK has access to speedy South African tanks at a wide range of BR's but they aren't as dangerous as autocannon vehicles.
Russian CAS rushes may happen with the BT-7 and will be easy kills for you. BMP's are extremely dangerous but slower than you.

• Sweden

Rarely fights for capture points unless its an emergency

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The second part of map awareness is the tricky part that requires experimentation and experience.

If you spawn into a 3 capture point map, which one is the hotspot? Everyone knows that if you're on Abandoned Factory, everyone is gonna go fight at the northern part of the map, even if there isn't even a capture point up there. Do you want to avoid it because you don't have any armored tanks? Or do you want to use your superior speed to get an early position to abuse the fact everyone is going to be holding w for the brawling area?








What about points that are hard to capture but easy to defend? Like if you're on Carpathians and its a single capture point on the B area, you absolutely want to capture that and hold it before the enemies do because if you don't its going to be absolute misery to capture it later. Alternatively, you can aggressively push the hill to keep enemies from contesting it. Another option is to wide flank north and south, possibly intercepting other flankers.

These are just examples of the sort of mindset I have when I play Italy. Every map has different strategies and if you're like me you probably have a preference in the areas you like to go to. They always can be approached in a way that maximizes the strengths of the vehicle you're in. The trick is knowing when to be patient and when to be aggressive.

Overall: Very fun as a flanker or even as a brawler. Just don’t get shot.

First and most obvious is that it’s a wheeled vehicle. It’s going to be best while on roads, and it’s going to be absolutely awful in any rough terrain (mud/water). The AB 41 in particular isn’t very good while offroad, so avoid going cross country if you can avoid it. It also has no armor and below average acceleration.

Here’s the good news - even though the acceleration is fairly poor, your top speed is quite good (assuming you can drive on roads) and as a bonus your reverse speed is good as well. To compliment your speed, the AB 41 also has great turning - both the front and rear wheels pivot. If you’re going too fast it can be a little too maneuverable, but that’s something you’ll get used to. At low speed, your turning feels excellent.

In addition, you have an extremely solid main gun. You eventually unlock the PzGr 40 belt which has 48mm of penetration within 100m, which is extremely good for an autocannon at BR1.0. Even if you get fully uptiered to 2.0, you’ll still be able to easily flank people and kill them with your autocannon from the side. Your gun doesn’t have great elevation or turret turn speed but it’s not impossible for you to go after slow enemy biplanes when the opportunity arises.

Pros

• Autocannon
  
• PzGr 40 belts (researchable)
  
• Good top speed
  
• Good reverse
  
• Great turning (for wheeled vehicle)
  
• Resistant to uptiers

Cons

• Below average reload speed
  
• Below average offroad speed
  
• Poor acceleration
  
• Poor armor
  
• Map sensitive

---

Overall: pretty meh.

Big brain strategy: some people will think your machine gun turret is your main weapon and shoot at it hoping to disable you. Since it’s not crewed by your gunner you’ll be able to retaliate (assuming you haven't already died).

Pros

• Has a fakeout turret that can bait shots
  
• Decent ROF
  
• Main gun is offset so you can do tricky things with corners

Cons

• Casemate
  
• Machine gun turret is very exposed compared to your main gun
  
• Poor reverse

---

The madmen did it. They took a car and put a cannon on it!

This version of the AS 42 is arguably even better than the SPAA version! Its cannon is great for its battle rating and will one shot most things - which is important because your crew is essentially sitting inside of a convertible.

Its fast and has good rate of fire. Get in a sneaky flanking position and you're golden.

Pros

• Has 3 crew-members so you don't die instantly if one gets hit
  
• Good rate of fire
  
• Good APHE round
  
• Fast on roads
  
• Great reverse (-22 kmh)

Cons

• No armor
  
• Exposed crew
  
• No secondary MG's
  
• Can't fire backwards
  
• Unstable when firing
  
• Wide turning circle

---

Think of this as a slower, better armored AB 41. Same main weapon - 8 round autocannon with decent AP rounds. It has pretty decent turning even if it’s not that fast.

When I say "better armor" keep in mind I'm comparing it to a tank with no armor. Your armor is still bad overall. You may bounce shots taken at longer ranges or awkward angles, but don’t rely on it.

Pros

• Autocannon
  
• Good AP clip (researchable)
  
• Decent turning

Cons

• Below average reload speed
  
• Very poor armor
  
• Mediocre acceleration and speed

---

Overall: Meh.

Decent APHE round that can one-shot the tiny tanks at your tier. Your armor is pretty light, but good enough to stop autocannons. I'm gonna be honest I can't be bothered to continue writing about this or the next tank. They're boring, but they're fine? I guess?

Pros

• Decent APHE round

Cons

• Poor armor
  
• Slow turret
  
• Below average mobility

---

This is basically the same tank as its predecessor but somehow its managed to improve the rate of fire a bit. The ROF bump makes this a half decent tank.

Unique Pros

• Improved rate of fire (5.2 reload -> 3.8 sec reload)

Unique Cons

• Higher BR to its predicessor

---

A near carbon copy of the previous M13's. Its gun is the same but it has a slightly better engine. This is clearly the "ULTIMATE" version of the three tanks. Its been upgraded from "meh" to "fine".

Pros

• Decent ROF
  
• Decent Turning
  
• Good gun depression (-15 degrees)
  
• Good APHE round

Cons

• Poor reverse
  
• Slow turret

---

It's fast. It's got good AP ammo - and a lot of it. This thing is the ultimate low rank glass cannon. A single shot from an enemy machine gun can kill your gunner and knock you out. This makes it, an anti-aircraft classed vehicle, extremely vulnerable to CAS attacks. Protip: most SPAA are extremely vulnerable to CAS

The best piece of armor on this thing is the gun, which (surprisingly) does block machine gun fire.

It’s a lot of fun and a great low tier vehicle, even with its downsides. What’s not to love about a convertible with an autocannon on the top of it? Use your speed advantage to flank and use your autocannon to slap around light vehicles.

Pros

• Autocannon
  
• Good AP for its rank
  
• Lots of ammo
  
• Good acceleration
  
• Decent reverse
  
• Great gun depression for SPAA (-10 degrees)

Cons

• Practically no armor
  
• Very exposed gunner
  
• Only 2 crew
  
• Cannot aim directly behind the vehicle
  
• Poor turning
  
• Poor speed on rough terrain

---

The meme, the myth, the legend - the L3/33.

At its BR, it’s actually pretty decent. As soon as you get uptiered you will have to use every neuron and synapse of your big gamer brain to make it work well.

This thing is seriously tiny. It’s so tiny that you will have trouble with the random garbage placed on the map, as well as any brick walls you come across. It's very easy to hide and you'll need to hide in order to survive. Depending on the tank you're fighting, you may have to sneak up point blank range in order to do damage because this thing has poor penetration. The L3 is quite agile, although the reverse gear is pretty meh.

Pros

• Main weapon has a 10 round magazine with good interclip reload
  
• Extremely small profile
  
• Good acceleration and mobility
  
• Great gun depression (-15 degrees)

Cons

• Perhaps the only tank in the game that should fear Rank I French tanks.
  
• Very poor armor
  
• Very poor post penetration damage
  
• Only 2 crewmembers
  
• So small that you will have problems with obstacles like fences and walls
  
• No secondary machine guns
  
• Very sensitive to uptiers

---

A big upgrade overall compared to the M11/39. Your tank is now open top, so prepare for headaches from planes.

Just like the previous tank destroyer, your gun is off-center. This is actually really good for this tank if you use it to hide the weaker armor on the right side. Your gun has good armor for its BR. It also hides the stupid crewmember poking his head over the lip of the tank.

It is very unstable when firing - it may be hard to figure out your adjustment of fire when you're shooting at far targets.

Pros

• Low profile
  
• Offset main weapon lets you do sneaky things with corners
  
• Good rate of fire
  
• Good turning speed
  
• Decent reverse
  
• Good post penetration damage

Cons

• Casemate
  
• Unstable after firing
  
• Open top
  
• Exposed crew

---

The Lancia is the kind of vehicle that shows up as an event reward or a premium vehicle sometimes. That is to say its a bad vehicle that has some goofy gimmick that makes it fun or interesting.

If a brand new player started playing the Italian Tech tree and unlocked this, they will probably experience pure Warthunder Suffering(tm). It has absolutely zero armor, a long reload speed, really bad gun handling, and the HE shell it gets is good but it’s not braindead KV-2 levels of “hit a dude and he dies”.

For moderately experienced players, this is a fun meme machine.

Pros

• Decent stock HE round
  
• Researchable HESH round
  
• Decent top speed
  
• Decent reverse speed (-11 kmh)
  
• Frontal LMG
  
• Large crew (6)

Cons

• Absolutely zero armor
  
• Poor offroad speed
  
• Poor turn speed (it takes the wheels a long time to physically turn)
  
• Large turn radius
  
• Poor gun handling
  
• Slow shell velocity
  
• Researchable anti-concrete shell is bad
  
• Cannot aim straight forward unless tipped on a hill or something
  
• Slow reload speed

---

A very mediocre armored car starts out the Hungarian sub-tree! Its fast and turns well, but the main weakness is its gun. Its an anti-tank rifle mounted in a tank (sorta like the L3). It severely lacks post penetration damage. Even though you get 5 rounds to shoot (at 1 round per second) you'll find that you wont be able to reach crew members deeper inside of the tank you're shooting at. Things like the LVT and the T28 are a nightmare because of all the empty space and many crewmembers. Your poor penetration means that angled armor is a major obstacle to you as well.

Flank and spank - leverage your speed and try your best for side shots. Be annoying.

Pros

• Good mobility
  
• Excellent reverse speed (same as forward speed)
  
• 5 round magazine, 1 round per second
  
• Fast reload between magazines

Cons

• Very poor armor (can't withstand .50 cals)
  
• Poor penetration
  
• Very poor post pen damage
  
• Wobbly suspension

Should I get it: Nah only if you're a collector

This is a carbon copy of the tech tree M13/40 III. It has some small cosmetic differences but functionally its the exact same.

Unique Pros

• None

Unique Cons

• None

---

Hungarian built, licensed copy of the Swedish Strv m/38 with some upgrades.

Battlepass reward that I didn't get, so we'll see if it ever comes back!

MIA

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Should I get it: Nah only if you're a collector.

This is a carbon copy of the tech tree L6/40 except with a unique camo.









Look at this goober. Definitely worth your GE!

Unique Pros

• Cool porcupine/Spurdo Spärde looking guy

Unique Cons

• None

A decent and fun armored car.

It has the usual strengths and weaknesses of vehicles of its type. Fast on roads, decent offroad, pure suffering in rough terrain. This car in particular has great initial acceleration and great turning, but it can take a while to reach its top speed. It also has a really good reverse speed.

The weapon is decent as well - although the turret is pretty sluggish.

Pros

• Good acceleration and turn radius
  
• Low profile turret
  
• Great reverse speed
  
• Light tank scouting and improved repairing

Cons

• Poor armor
  
• Slow turret traverse
  
• Very poor speed in rough terrain

---

The Stuart is just plain fun. The Italian version isn’t any different from the American one. It's very fast and has some tricky angled armor. You are still probably going to die when you get shot but it's not a guaranteed thing. Use your speed to aggressively cap forward points or to get into good flanking spots. Some of the wheeled vehicles you will be facing will be faster (like the Puma) but they rely on roads. Offroad, you will be king.

Your weaponry is very decent as well - you get access to APCBC ammo (87mm @ point blank) with a gun that has a ~3 second reload. Even if it doesn’t have good post penetration damage, you’ll be able to shoot follow up shots to finish the job quickly.

Keep in mind that even though it may look like you have a .50 cal on the top of your tank, it’s only a LMG. It has great elevation, so it’s still useful as a last ditch AA gun.

Pros

• Good acceleration, turning, and top speed
  
• Great ROF
  
• Low speed stabilizer (<10mph)
  
• Decent penetration
  
• Decent armor for light tank
  
• Light tank spotting and improved repair
  
• Smoke grenades

Cons

• Below average armor overall
  
• Cramped crew
  
• Poor post penetration damage

---

Yet another mixed bag from Italy. If you manage to find a game at your BR, you'll do fine. Its main strength is that it has a really good rate of fire with a shell that will basically kill anything you manage to penetrate. When you're up against Germany you can easily wipe out anything you come across. If you're up against Russia, pray you don't see a T-50 because you'll never be able to kill it.

Pros

• Good armor at or below its BR
  
• Great ROF
  
• Smoke launcher (Italian style)

Cons

• Terrible reverse
  
• Penetration isn't enough to deal with any of the stronger tanks around your BR
  
• Secondary LMG’s have small magazines
  
• Turret mounted LMG cannot aim horizontally independently to the turret
  
• Awkward BR
  
• Very sensitive to uptiers

---

Starting out you will hate this thing - it’s really slow, turns slowly, its gun has low pen and it has slow muzzle velocity. Things get better once you get the HEAT round. Until that point, you will need to be Mr. Flanker because you will struggle against most frontal armor if you’re uptiered at all.

Pros

• 100mm HEAT (researchable)
  
• Decent armor while angled
  
• Smoke launcher
  
• Smoke shells
  
• Good ROF

Cons

• Very poor muzzle velocity
  
• Weak starting ammo
  
• Fairly slow
  
• Poor reverse

Fun fact: Ausführung translates to "version" or "model"

---

The P40 is a very medium tank. Decent armor, decent gun, not too slow. Very balanced in its capabilities. It doesn’t really have any critical weaknesses…but it also doesn’t really have any notable strengths either. It’s more of a T-34 than a Sherman, so it’s less about the pure frontal armor as it is about angled armor for overall armor protection.

Anecdotally this was the first Italian tank I played that made me feel like I could take a hit and not immediately die. I guess in the context of other Italian tanks, the fact it has functional armor is a unique strength?

Pros

• Decent armor
  
• HEAT with 100mm of pen (researchable)
  
• Decent turning
  
• Good ROF

Cons

• Turret is sluggish
  
• Terrible reverse

---

A truck with a gun(s) on it. You should be starting to see a pattern with Italy by now.

Really good at what its designed to do - move to a position and kill airplanes. Planes at this BR are slow and fly low, and you'll shred them. You do have the minor problem of having zero armor, but that's normal for SPAA's. Don't focus on one airplane too long especially if you've been shooting. CAS loves going after distracted SPAA because they're easy kills.

Shooting tanks is more difficult. There are definitely tanks you can kill but they're very specific (mostly Swedish). I would focus on moving with to your allies and shooting down airplanes going for bombing runs. On average, the best you're going to do to enemy vehicles is to destroy their tracks.

On certain maps, you blend in with the prop cars and trucks VERY well. As long as you don't move your gun (i.e. hold C while you look around) you're pretty darn sneaky. Remember: War Thunder players are like the T-Rex in Jurassic Park - their vision is based on movement.

Pros

• 4x .50 cals are great at killing airplanes
  
• Very large magazines
  
• Great turret speed
  
• Fast on roads
  
• Somewhat camouflaged since you look like a normal truck from the front

Cons

• Lightweight - may struggle to break obstacles
  
• Wide turning circle
  
• Struggles on hills and rough terrain
  
• Main weapon isn't good enough to reliably kill tanks even from the side
  
• Can't fire straight ahead
  
• Long reload

---

Overall: BAD, use it only if you like to use tanks no one ever uses

Pros

• Low profile
  
• 100mm HEAT (researchable)
  
• Decent APCBC (researchable)
  
• Smoke shell
  
• Pintle mounted LMG
  
• Decent armor at its BR

Cons

• Poor armor
  
• Small, cramped crew of 3
  
• LMG only has 24 shots before reload and has a small arc of fire
  
• Stock round has bad penetration
  
• Poor reverse
  
• Sensitive to uptiers

---

Overall: Upgraded from bad to meh

Pros

• Stock shell is significantly better than its predecessor
  
• 100mm HEAT (researchable)
  
• Smoke shell
  
• Decent gun depression (-12 degrees)

Cons

• No pintle mounted machine gun (it’s not like the one on the 75/18 was any good)
  
• Big, flat, thin armor plate
  
• Small, cramped crew of 3
  
• Side armor isn’t great so it's a little risky to angle
  
• Poor reverse

---

This is a carbon copy of the 75/32 with a few small differences.
It has better acceleration and is slightly faster
The stock APHE round is slightly better
It has -10 degrees of depression instead of -12
Its HEAT round is a tier 1 modification so it's easier to unlock
It loses smoke shells but gains an Italian style smoke launcher

All of these things are minor - it plays largely the same as the 75/32 i.e. its nothing special.

---

More of the same - another casemate tank destroyer that’s outclassed by pretty much everything else you could compare it to. The decent HEAT round helps in a pinch, but not enough to elevate this tank to anything more than “average”.

Pros

• Good APC round
  
• Low profile
  
• Decent horizontal coverage
  
• HEAT round (Tier 2)
  
• Smoke launcher (Italian style)
  
• Decent armor

Cons

• Sluggish reload
  
• Small crew (3)
  
• Angling exposes the thinner angled corners of your armor
  
• No secondary machine guns
  
• Poor reverse

---

Finally. A decent Semovente! For its BR, it has a solid mix of firepower and armor.

Speaking of your armor - you could try to angle to your left side as much as possible - you have a very tricky bit of armor right where your gunner sits. It’s the thickest part of your frontal armor and most people won’t know that. Unfortunately you still have those thinner angled corners, so smart players will just shoot there instead.

Pros

• Upgraded armor compared to previous version
  
• Faster reload compared to previous version
  
• Strong APCBC round
  
• Low profile
  
• Good horizontal gun coverage
  
• Smoke launcher (Italian style)

Cons

• HEAT is less effective than previous version
  
• Poor reverse
  
• Poor turning

---

Some of you may already be acquainted with a similar tank from the premium Turan II that was a battle pass reward. While the Turan II is quite good, its predecessor is much less so.

The strengths of the Turan I are its extremely good reverse speed and its spaced armor. The spaced armor is actually fairly relevant because there are many HE launchers and low rank HEAT exists as well.

Your reverse speed is the same as your forward speed, so that is extremely useful for popping in and out of cover to shoot, as well as to just straight up disengage.

Your gun fires fast but the APHE round isn't that strong and the solid AP is...uh, its solid AP so it's automatically worse. Its not bad its just nothing special. You'll have to be smart when engaging the heavier tanks you'll face.

Pros

• Bonus armor against chemical rounds
  
• Good rate of fire
  
• Low speed stabilizer (<10kmh)
  
• Amazing reverse (same as forward top speed)
  
• Smoke launcher (5 uses)

Cons

• Cramped turret
  
• Gun is kinda weak overall
  
• Slow aiming
  
• No pintle mounted MG
  
• Not a lot of tanks at 2.3 for Italy anyway

---

The Zrínyi is...OK-ish. I'm hesitant because it's got a lot of stuff going on that is a mixed bag. It has a big HE round, but not so big that its able to easily 1 shot everything. It has HEAT with plenty of pen, but the post pen damage isn't great. It has the awesome Hungarian reverse speed, but your forward speed isn't anything special. Your frontal armor is good but only because of volumetric weirdness that will eat a lot of shells for breakfast. You're low profile but your total surface area from the air is huge.

See what I mean? Anything good has to be paired with something that's also bad about it.

Its definitely usable but its just nothing you're going to be excited about. Its basically the blueprint for the average Italian WW2 tank destroyer because that's how I'd describe the vast majority of the Semovente line.

Pros

• Wonky overlapping stuff gives you pretty good frontal armor
  
• Bonus armor against chemical rounds on the sides
  
• Very good reverse (same as forward speed)
  
• Access to HEAT

Cons

• Both HE and HEAT require careful aiming, just not at the same spots
  
• No secondary machine guns to clear obstacles for main gun
  
• Slow reload
  
• Below average gun depression (-7 deg)
  
• Very large target for planes, very weak top armor
  
• Poor stationary turning

Should I buy: Very fun, but still a low tier premium. Get it on sale or maybe from battle pass warbonds!

Overall: Fun, fast, pretty darn good

Besides having an extremely W I D E chassis, the Celere Sahariano sits pretty low to the ground and has a lot of angled bits of armor. Its Good Medium Tank, that is to say that is has good acceleration, good top speed, good turning, and it has a decent gun as well. Its a great all rounder.

With your speed, you should either be running into a lot of light tanks or getting flanks on heavier tanks early on.

Pros

• Great top speed
  
• Very good turning
  
• Tricky armor
  
• Low profile

Cons

• Very poor reverse

---

Should I buy: Skippable, unless collecting. The HMG is pretty nice but its a low tier premium at the end of the day.

This is mostly a carbon copy of the M15/42 but there are two differences - one good and one bad.

On the plus side the hull mounted HMG you get is a very welcome addition - even though it’s not as nice as the American pintle mounted HMG’s, it's still a very useful tool and can take out careless airplanes or thinly armored (24mm of pen at point blank) ground targets. It has a small magazine - so don’t be careless with your shots. The reload time is pretty short at least. Sadly, using the HMG is only possible with a full crew.

On the negative side you do have weaker hull armor compared to the M15/42. You do retain the decent turret armor at least.

Unique pros

• Hull mounted HMG with decent elevation (identical to main gun elevation)

Unique cons

• Much thinner armor on the front vertical plate

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The Leoncello is just a fancy version of the tech tree P40.

Unfortunately it is currently not available, although it may be re-added for the Italian National Unity day in the future (around November).

Unique Pros

• Fancy camo

Unique Cons

• None

---

Should I get: Low tier premium, but it has major FOMO-factor since its unobtainable at the moment...so we'll see if it comes back (don't hold your breath).

Technically not an Italian tank - this thing is Hungarian! It’s about what you’d expect from a premium event vehicle - it has some unique qualities but isn’t crazy overpowered.

The anti-HEAT fence you get usually won’t matter very much, but it’s a nice bonus. Otherwise it’s a fun tank and it’s worth including in your 2.3 lineup…if you can get it. It’s a battle pass vehicle so who knows when it’ll be available to get in the future.

The main strength this has is 90mm HEAT at a low battle rating. Low tier HEAT isn't exactly the most consistent shell, but when you pair it with a good rate of fire, it can shred enemies.

Pros

• Good ROF (3.3 second reload aced)
  
• 90mm pen HEAT shell
  
• Fence armor
  
• Good initial acceleration
  
• Decent reverse
  
• Large crew

Cons

• Very cramped turret
  
• APHE and HE rounds are weak
  
• Somewhat slow turret traverse
  
• Can’t angle effectively due to beveled armor
  
• Only available through the Battle Pass at the moment

This thing is always great no matter which tech tree it shows up in. For its BR, I personally think it has the best balance of speed, mobility, firepower, and utility for a light tank.

While Italy features a lot of faster vehicles, the M24 is no slouch. It has great acceleration and a good reverse speed as well. Its armor isn't that great but it has a luxury that a lot of light tanks don't - enough armor to not die from HMG's.

It also has a very respectable main gun (even if your reload speed is a bit slow) - the turret speed is quite good and the APCBC round you get is excellent. On top of that, you get a low speed (<10mph) vertical stabilizer which gives you a huge advantage when you stumble into an enemy.

Utility wise, you’ve got light tank spotting and repairing abilities. You also have a smoke launcher and smoke shells. I always have a couple smoke shells to annoy tanks in hard to reach places or to cover people crossing suicidal areas. Your smoke grenade launcher that shoots one at a time is my favorite since it’s flexible for attacking, retreating, or covering allies.

Pros

• Great main gun
  
• Low speed stabilizer (<10mph)
  
• Secondary pintle mounted HMG
  
• Great acceleration and mobility
  
• Good reverse
  
• Enough armor to defend against HMG fire
  
• Smoke shells
  
• Smoke launcher
  
• Light tank spotting and improved repair

Cons

• Mediocre reload speed
  
• Armor is still pretty poor

---

Overall: [HOT TAKE ALERT] The Breda is strong and a lot of fun, but lets be honest with ourselves - its not as insanely good as some people would argue it is.

The Breda is a quintessential Italian vehicle in War Thunder. It has speed, it has firepower, it has questionable design choices (seriously what the heck are the dudes on the back LMGs supposed to be shooting at?).

Frontally, you have just enough armor to withstand HMG fire (sometimes)…and that’s the conclusion to your defensive capabilities.

Offensively, your main weapon is very good - your ammo has big penetration and your gun has excellent horizontal coverage (although it has poor depression at -4 degrees). Just keep in mind that you won’t easily penetrate everything you face frontally. Against heavier tanks you’ll still need to be careful with your shots. Leverage your speed to get into good flanking positions and you won’t have to think about such trifling things like armor layouts.

You’ve got decent initial acceleration, but it's pretty slow getting up to your max speed. Your turn radius is big, but it's offset somewhat by the superior range of movement your gun has. Reverse is terrible, never use it if you can help it.

The two goobers hanging out in the back of your vehicle are really only good for replacing your other crew members. The LMG's they use don't have the power, or the firing arcs, OR the ammo capacity to fight planes or anything else for that matter.

Pros

• Good top speed
  
• Good main gun
  
• Great maximum horizontal gun traversal (190 degrees)
  
• Crew of 5
  
• Enough armor to resist frontal HMG fire (sometimes)

Cons

• Poor armor overall
  
• Slow to get to top speed
  
• Open top
  
• Very high recoil, will shift you around
  
• Exposed crew
  
• Poor performance in rough terrain
  
• Poor reverse
  
• Below average turn speed
  
• Map sensitive

---

It's a Sherman! It's actually not a Sherman that you can play in the American tree - it's only available in Italy, France, and China (as of this writing). Regardless, it plays pretty much the same as your bog standard Sherman. You’ll want to rush the research for the APHE round because your stock AP isn’t exactly great.

Your armor is capable, but nothing special. Angling may help but over angling will expose your thin side armor. You do get additional armor over your ammo stowage which is nice...for your enemies. It tells them exactly where to aim to easily ammo rack you.

This thing was a struggle to play while fully stock. Once you get the APHE and engine upgrades, your experience will vastly improve. Even though you don't get the roof .50 cal its still an extremely good brawler with an elevated skill floor.

Pros

• Good APHE shell (researchable)
  
• Decent ROF
  
• Smoke shells
  
• Responsive turret
  
• Low speed stabilizer

Cons

• Poor turning
  
• Poor reverse
  
• No American pintle mounted HMG :(
  
• Stock suffering syndrome

---

Overall: Know your role (sniping) and you'll do just fine.

This is your bog standard Sherman but with a significantly upgraded gun (the Bri'ish 17-pounder). You’ll be using this tank mostly as a sniper because 1: your armor is trash at this battle rating and 2: your gun is excellent and makes sniping easy. Your major downgrade from most Shermans is that it does not get the low speed stabilizer that most American tanks enjoy.

It doesn't exactly have sniper friendly optics, but they're good enough. It’s got average speed (when upgraded) so it’s decent in that regard as well. Just don’t rely on your armor. Overall it’s pretty darn good as long as you know your role, know where to shoot, and know the map you’re playing on. This tank has a significantly higher skill floor than previous tanks I played in Italy. You may struggle with it at first (or maybe this is just a giant cope because I struggled with it).

Pros

• Main gun has very strong AP round
  
• Pintle mounted HMG
  
• Smoke grenades
  
• Smoke shells

Cons

• No low speed stabilizer
  
• Pintle mounted HMG has poor elevation
  
• Poor armor for its rank
  
• Poor reverse
  
• No APHE rounds

---

This is essentially an Italian Wirbelwind. The pure firepower this can unleash is incredible - assuming you have appropriate targets to shoot at. It used to have magazines but it was changed so that you get all of your ammo in one big pool.

This sounds great (and it is) but it comes with two hidden downsides. First, you can only bring one ammo type into the mission. You can’t split your shells up into HE for air and AP for ground. You have to go all in, and the good AP rounds do not have any HE shells mixed in. The second downside is since you never have to reload, you tend to be more wasteful with your ammo. This is a relatively easy fix - you just have to be mindful of your trigger finger. I still find myself playing close to a capture point for a quick reload when I inevitably run out.

Its acceleration and handling is nothing special but you have an absolutely awful reverse. Thankfully the turret armor is just thick and angled enough that you can barely protect your gunner against HMG fire while at a moderate range. It also has smoke grenades, but they are a mixed bag. They deploy right under your tank, so you can use it to cover your retreat but you can’t really use it to help cross dangerous areas. In the future I will be referring to this kind of smoke launcher as the “Italian style” smoke launcher.

Overall, very good SPAA for its BR.

Pros

• 640 shot magazine with great rate of fire
  
• Just enough armor to protect against HMGs (sometimes)
  
• Smoke launcher (Italian style)
  
• Good turret speed

Cons

• Awful reverse
  
• Poorly armored overall
  
• Very easy to waste ammo with
  
• No flexibility with ammo choices - you go all in on whatever belt you pick

---

This tank was a bit of a struggle for me - mostly because of its grand total of 8 units of ammunition. Historically, the M41M was accompanied with an ammo carrier tankette, which is why in game we have such little ammo to use. It is a lot harder to roam around the more sneaky-sneaky flanky-flanky areas of the map. Its extremely frustrating when you get a Battle map (the attack/defend style map) because your allied point can be very far away from any areas you'd actually be fighting in.

The gun itself is quite good - it has good penetration/muzzle velocity and despite it not being fully turreted it has really good horizontal coverage (depression is pretty bad, only -5 degrees). The M41M is poorly armored, but it's still surprisingly survivable. The crew are located in two separate areas - 2 in the driving compartment at the front and 2 manning the gun. The strategy of "shoot center of mass" that works on most tanks does not work on this thing at all - that is where your engine is located and unless your ammo detonates it’s unlikely you’ll die in one shot. I personally found that many people had no idea how to quickly kill you - so definitely try to stick around your team and pray they’ll be able to save you before your attacker picks off your crew one by one.

Pros

• Great main weapon
  
• Crew is very spaced out
  
• Good horizontal coverage
  
• Center of mass is not a crew compartment - its the engine

Cons

• 8 round total capacity
  
• Poor gun depression (-5 degrees)
  
• Very poor armor
  
• Exposed gunnery crew
  
• Exposed ammo

---

If you haven't played the StuG yet, it’s a very capable tank destroyer with no glaring weaknesses outside of the inherent problems that all casemate tanks have.

Offensively you have a very strong APHE round. You may be tempted to bring along some APCR for heavily armored people but APCR is pretty bad so I wouldn't bring much if any. Don't even bother with the HEAT round.

You have good acceleration but only an average top speed. The StuG does have great turning - enemies coming from your sides isn’t an automatic death sentence as long as you react fast enough.

Your frontal armor is somewhat decent, mostly because of volumetric wonkiness. You'll block some shots but you're far from heavily armored. Utility-wise, you have both a smoke launcher and smoke shells. The smoke launcher is excellent - it covers a very wide frontal area.

The StuG will suffer somewhat on hilly maps because it has fairly poor gun depression.

Pros

• Good turning
  
• Decent acceleration
  
• Decent frontal armor
  
• Low profile
  
• Decent ROF
  
• Great stock round
  
• Smoke launcher
  
• Smoke shells

Cons

• Poor horizontal coverage
  
• Poor gun depression (-6 degrees)
  
• No secondary machine guns

---

The final Semovente…and it's actually really good. You get both surprisingly good armor and a strong gun.

To maximize the potential of your armor pay attention to your matchmaking. Are you at your BR or in a downtier? Awesome. Are you against America and Russia? Awesome - you can be a giant bully because they will struggle to pen your armor.
Are you in an uptier? Are you against Germany or Sweden? Be careful because they can just lolpen your armor.

Also keep in mind that your transmission is not well armored and will get disabled a lot. Try not to get immobilized in a position where you can't defend yourself.

Pros

• Strong APHE round
  
• Strong, spaced armor (especially on the left side)
  
• Smoke launcher (5 uses)
  
• LMG for breaking fences
  
• Low profile

Cons

• Poor turning without forward momentum
  
• Very poor reverse (3kmh)
  
• LMG is worthless for anything other than breaking map clutter
  
• Uptier sensitive
  
• Transmission is very vulnerable
  
• Roof armor won't protect against 20mm on aircraft

---

The Turan III is a goofy looking sidegrade to the Pz.4. Overall its actually pretty good as long as you play it in a similar way.

Your main strengths are that you have a strong gun and a very fast reverse. Using them together to shoot and reverse into cover is what's worked best for me. Once you get the suspension module upgrade, firing at low speeds is really easy. You're technically not stabilized but if you're going less than 10kmh you feel like you are. Not a lot of people know how fast you can go backwards so you can use that to your advantage in edge cases.

I'd never call the Pz4's armor great, but the versions that have the add on track armor are actually pretty decent against APHE shells. The Turan III doesn't have that advantage at all. You get some fence armor to help against chemical rounds but at its rank there aren't a lot of people using HEAT and anything using HE is gonna be way too big for you to shrug off.

Pros

• Strong main weapon
  
• Great reverse (-44kmh)
  
• Smoke launchers (Italian style, 5 uses)
  
• Bonus armor vs chemical rounds
  
• Surprisingly good suspension

Cons

• Kinda bad armor overall
  
• Poor aiming speed
  
• High profile (+goofy looking)
  
• Cramped turret

Overall: Worth getting to bolster a lineup, but not a high priority premium.

The M4 Hybrid is an almost carbon copy of M4 Shermans in other tech trees. Technically there are some minor differences in the armor layout compared to other versions of the Sherman, but they don’t really matter. It also features 5x magnification on its optics compared to the 3.5x on the tech tree Sherman which is a big plus.

Unique Pros

• Upgraded optics

Unique Cons

• Very slightly weaker armor in some places compared to regular Shermans

---

Should I buy: Low BR premium vehicles are usually questionable purchases, but if you have disposable income and you enjoy 4.0 Italy then buying this to add to your lineup will feel great. The Field Testing battle pass even had it as one of the free2grind premium tanks! If you plan on getting a premium with warbonds, this one is definitely worth it. Keep a lookout for this in the warbond shop in the future.

The Italian version of the Pz.IV G has two differences from the German tech tree version. First and most obvious is the spaced armor around the turret. The second is that it gets a slightly longer gun, with slightly better penetration out of its ammo (+2% i.e. about 3mm of penetration). For these amazing and unique upsides, the Italian Pz.IV G comes with a BR increase over its German brother.

The turret armor is going to be purely cosmetic 99% of the time. If you're seriously paying 1750 GE for a gun with 3mm extra penetration, I don't know what to tell you. Sarcasm (and easy jokes about German player IQ) aside, the Pz.IV G is an excellent vehicle and fits well into the Italian lineup at its BR.

Pros

• Decent acceleration and mobility
  
• Decent gun handling
  
• Good APCBC round
  
• Angling can deflect some shots
  
• Smoke grenade launcher
  
• Smoke shells

Unique Pros

• Spaced turret armor
  
• 75 mm KwK40 L48 cannon

Cons

• Lots of flat armor
  
• Cramped turret

Unique Cons

• Very slightly heavier than the German Pz.IV G
  
• BR increase compared to a virtual carbon copy in the German tech tree

---

This tank is usually not available for purchase but occasionally shows up for Italian National Day.

Its a carbon copy of the tech tree M43 105/25 Semovente tank destroyer, only with a unique paint job and a premium talisman.

Unique Pros

• Fancy paint job

Unique Cons

• None

---

Sorozatvető - Multiple rocket launcher

Overall: Glass cannon that can retreat quickly.

Pros

• Great APCBC round
  
• 6 rockets - Easily kills light and medium tanks
  
• Low profile
  
• Italian style smoke launchers (5 uses)
  
• Reverse speed is same as forward speed

Cons

• Below average gun depression (-8 degrees)
  
• Poor turning
  
• Poor frontal armor, very thin roof armor
  
• Your rockets can be detonated to ammo rack you
  
• Also good luck aiming the rockets
  
• Only available as event vehicle - unsure when it will be back

---

Overall: A really good free battlepass vehicle. I would be sad if I missed out on getting this one.

Lets get this out of the way first thing: this is no Breda 501. Its not as fast, it can't aim forward as well, and its just not as cool looking.

However what it is, is a very good gun on a fairly mobile platform. Well, its mobile as long as there aren't any hills on the map you're playing. Hills are your enemy. You don't have that much engine power and you have even less gun depression. You'll have to get creative on some maps with lots of poor terrain.

You also get the extremely powerful improved rangefinder upgrade, which works up to 3km and finds your range accurately within 2 seconds. Its probably the strongest feature of this tank so make sure you take advantage of it.

You also get time fuse HE but its useless because as far as I can tell you can't adjust the fuse time so it always is either too far or too short at air targets you're shooting at. At the very best, you could use it to splash open top vehicles behind cover. I haven't had a chance to use it in that way but they're strictly better than the basic HE so bring a couple anyway. Just don't try shooting planes down.

Speaking of planes, you will draw aggro like crazy if you play properly (i.e. flanky sneaky sniper). Just be prepared for revenge CAS after every kill (you should be in general, but its especially bad for this thing).

Pros

• Strong main weapon
  
• Improved rangefinder (up to ~2980m)
  
• Time fuse HE shells (for splashing ground targets, don't bother with air)
  
• Large crew (6)
  
• Resistant to uptiers

Cons

• Practically no armor
  
• Truck cabin blocks gun depression forward
  
• Extremely poor gun depression overall (-2 deg)
  
• Poor gun handling
  
• No secondary machine guns
  
• Poor mobility on hills
  
• Wheeled vehicle with very large turning circle
  
• CAS magnet

Overall: If you’ve never played the Hellcat before now, prepare for an absolutely excellent light tank - speed, firepower, and a really nice pintle mounted HMG. You’re gonna love it.

You will be facing some pretty chonky tanks at its BR (think Tigers, Jumbos, and the IS-2). Use your speed to flank (obviously) if you come across these guys. Otherwise you have good enough penetration to shoot most mediums from the front.

Despite being an American cross-tree tank, this thing is definitely Italian in terms of speed. It has excellent top speed (50km/h offroad, 72km/h on road), great acceleration, great turning, great reverse, and the engine sounds are awesome.

What this thing doesn’t have is armor. Who cares! You’re too fast to get hit, you'll be fine! The turret and the drivers compartment are far enough apart that you can avoid getting one-shot some of the time.

Rush straight for the APHE round. Thankfully it’s only a tier 2 module but you’ll want to get it as soon as possible.

Pros

• Researchable APHE shell
  
• Great top speed
  
• Good acceleration
  
• Great reverse
  
• Good turning
  
• Large crew (5)
  
• Pintle mounted HMG
  
• Light tank improved repair and spotting

Cons

• Poor armor
  
• Open top
  
• Machine gunner is exposed

---

It’s easy (and understandable) to want to compare the AUBL with the FIAT. It's a useful point of reference since they share a lot of qualities but also have some important differences.

The AUBL’s main weapon has a better rate of fire, a much more responsive turret, and half as much penetration. It’s a lot easier to play reactively in the AUBL/74, but you will have to be more careful about your shot placement. You have average gun depression in general but your engine deck will restrict your gun when aiming backwards.

Overall I prefer the FIAT 6614 because of its one shot potential as well as not having to expose a turret to fire, but both of these vehicles are capable in their own right and fun to use AND the same BR so why not use both?

Pros

• Decent turret turning speed
  
• Very good acceleration on roads
  
• Good reverse
  
• Smoke launcher
  
• Smoke shells
  
• Spotting and repairing abilities
  
• Amphibious

Cons

• Very poor armor
  
• Very poor speed in rough terrain
  
• Can easily get stuck on corners of buildings
  
• Gun depression restricted when aiming backwards

---

Take the R3, slap a recoilless rifle on it, and presto! The FIAT 6614.

This thing is awesome. Since your gun is raised up above your vehicle, the best way to use it is to park yourself hull down. Normally, hull down positions still expose your turret to enemy fire but for the FIAT only your gun is exposed and unless they’re using HE or HESH, you’re going to be very hard to kill.

The reload is annoyingly long for such a fast vehicle. Your first shot accuracy is critically important. Thankfully this thing comes with a spotting machine gun! The ammo has similar ballistics to your main weapon, so you can use it to quickly estimate ranges. I have found that after ~700m it lands short and it's useless at ranges over 1000m. You'll have to experiment and get a feel for it yourself. Don’t bother using this MG to try and damage exposed crew or light armor - it only has a couple shots in it before it has to reload. It’s not even that good at removing obstacles. You may find you aren’t able to break some of the stronger fences.

A quirky feature of this vehicle is the way the cupola influences where your gun can move. It doesn't affect your gun depression, but it does affect your ability to aim up at times. Also, due to how you’re sort of a long vehicle, it is easy to get hung up on corners or walls if you get too close and lose all your speed. Don’t cut your corners too close or you’ll get stuck.

At the moment, the HESH shells are largely useless and you'll want to use HEAT. Because HEAT damage is unreliable at best, combined with your long reload time and squishy exterior, you may have to satisfy yourself with lots of assists. Don't be greedy.

Pros

• Very fast top speed
  
• Good acceleration on roads
  
• Good reverse
  
• Don't need to expose vehicle to shoot
  
• Extremely good gun depression off the right side (-17 deg)
  
• Spotting machine gun for longer range shots
  
• Small profile
  
• Resistant to uptiers
  
• Light tank spotting and repairing abilities
  
• Amphibious

Cons

• Very poor armor
  
• Difficult to steer at high speeds
  
• Big turning radius
  
• Very poor speed in rough terrain
  
• Poor post penetration damage
  
• Slow reload speed
  
• Slow turret traverse
  
• Can easily get stuck on corners and walls
  
• Gun elevation restricted on certain angles

---

Overall: The Tipo except a lot better

Fun Fact: "VC", "IC", or “Hybrid” is the callsign of a Sherman tank using a 17-pounder gun, while the nickname Firefly was sometimes used for any vehicle equipped with the 17-pounder gun. The Firefly moniker came from the distinct muzzle flash that the 17-pounder gun produced.

Similar to the Tipo, this is basically just a regular Sherman chassis with a powerful British gun. At its rank, you have effectively no armor. It's actually worse than that because if you had paper thin armor you’d at least be faster! This tank has a learning curve to it but as long as you know your role (sniper and support, not brawler) you’ll do fine.

The eventual APDS round you research is extremely easy to use and very effective - however you must know how to make sure you disable the tank you're shooting at. You will rarely oneshot enemy tanks, so your first shot should ideally take out the gunner, breech, or barrel of the enemy tank. Follow up shots should aim to kill or disable the driver, engine, or transmission.

Pros

• Great APDS round (researchable)
  
• Smoke grenades
  
• Smoke rounds
  
• Pintle mounted HMG

Cons

• Poor reverse
  
• Poor turning
  
• Poor armor for its rank
  
• Most of the crew is in the turret
  
• Only solid AP - no APHE available
  
• Pintle mounted HMG has very poor elevation

---

The A1 variants of the Pershing were upgraded with the 90mm gun used on the M46 Patton. Your ammunition choices are the same as the M36B1 except you lack the HEAT-FS round.

I personally found this thing to be decently tanky - but I am someone who is used to playing tanks that spontaneously explode when directly looked at. It doesn’t have great armor for its BR and it gets significantly worse if you face things above its BR.

Your APHE round is good but can sometimes not have enough penetration for the heavier tanks you’ll be facing. You do have access to an APCR round so try to anticipate the tanks you’ll be facing based on what kind of matchmaking you get. I find that I run into a lot more light tanks if I’m uptiered, so APHE is good enough. If I’m at or below my rank, there are a lot more heavy tanks running around.

While its mobility is pretty average, it does have an excellent reverse speed for a tracked vehicle - 15km/h! Peeking around corners and reversing back into cover is definitely a viable strategy with this thing.

Pros

• Decent main weapon
  
• Above average suspension for firing on the move
  
• Pintle mounted HMG (240 degree horizontal coverage)
  
• Very good reverse gear for tracked vehicle
  
• Smoke shells

Cons

• Poor turning while stationary
  
• Armor is very sensitive to uptiers

---

Overall the speed and pure flanking potential of the Leobofors make it a very solid tank. Your ability to also shoot down aircraft is just icing on the cake. The fact you're in heavy tank matchmaking hell really holds it back because if you ever come across tanks that are facing you, you're going to get vaporized.

It is exactly what it says on the box. A Leopard 1 chassis armed with a single 40mm Bofors. Time travelling tank appreciators, we are eating well this patch.

All the clickbait Youtube thumbnails telling you how incredibly overpowered this vehicle is are exaggerating a bit so don't expect something like the R3 in its glory days.

The main strength of this vehicle is its chassis which is both mobile and fairly well armored in the front. Your main weapon has just enough penetration to be able to kill heavy tanks from the side at least at closer ranges. You have great gun handling (as is expected from an SPAA) which really matters when you are trying to fire on the move since you're semi-stabilized.

I also found that its very good at killing aircraft. 40mm HE is basically a one hit kill against planes and you can aim fast enough to track nearby planes flying perpendicular to you.

Your main weakness should be pretty obvious - the majority of your crew is exposed and will die to even rifle caliber machine guns. Artillery is also extremely dangerous as well since you barely have any armor plates to protect your dudes from shrapnel.

Pros

• Main weapon has enough pen to deal with all targets with side shots
  
• Decent at killing air targets
  
• Good rate of fire
  
• Great gun handling, can fire on the move somewhat
  
• Good acceleration and top speed
  
• Excellent reverse (-25kmh)
  
• Neutral steering
  
• Decent frontal armor

Cons

• Majority of crew are extremely exposed and can easily be killed by rifle caliber MG's
  
• Heavy tank matchmaking hell
  
• Isolated in tech tree

---

Ahhh the R3. SPEED! This thing is all about speed. You can easily capture the middle point on a map before your teammates are even halfway to their first capture point. It's great! On roads, this thing is insanely fast. Even offroad, you have enough horsepower for some respectable speeds. Rough terrain like snow and mud is Pure Warthunder Suffering(tm).

Historically, this thing used to be the most annoying tank in the game - it had an extremely powerful gun at its BR, which was 3.7 when I originally played with it. Nowadays, its anti-tank capabilities has been extremely nerfed due to its severely increased battle rating and its gimped stabilizer and turret speed.

If you find yourself fighting an enemy tank that you cannot penetrate - fear not! Even if you can’t destroy the tank you can essentially disable it indefinitely. Your AP ammo quickly destroys tracks and most gun barrels. As long as you use your speed to keep out of the line of fire of coaxial HMG fire, you can keep several heavy tanks locked down for an extended period of time while you wait for your teammates to rescue you.

Or you can just run away. That works too.
Seriously though - do not underestimate the ability of this tank to support friendly tanks. Most players will focus on you because you’re an easy kill (if they can hit you). Bait them, lock them down, and let your teammates clean up. This requires that your team is paying attention, so be careful about that. Try not to waste your ammo on getting kills on medium or heavy tanks. It's better to just get the assist and to conserve ammo and crewmembers.

It’s AA capabilities are very good. You have a great ROF, a large magazine, great muzzle velocity, and good gun traverse. You’re fast and a small target, so even if you’re getting shot or bombed you have half a chance of zooming out of danger. The R3 does have a small dead zone directly above it - so keep that in mind when tracking planes (or if you’re attacking an R3 as a plane).

Pros

• Great ROF
  
• Good gun traverse
  
• Big magazine
  
• Extremely good acceleration and top speed
  
• Low speed stabilizer
  
• Don’t have to expose vehicle to shoot enemies
  
• Amphibious

Cons

• No armor
  
• Long reload
  
• Poor BR for anti-tank purposes
  
• Ammo rack on the gun can explode if shot

---

Unlike the M36 GMC in the American and Chinese tech trees, the M36B1 was built on the M4A3 Sherman hull and chassis. It uses the same gun as the M36, but this version has access to APCR and HEAT-FS rounds.

This thing is essentially a really tall tank destroyer and you should play it as such. Do not rely on your armor - rely on your gun. It will be harder than average to be sneaky with this thing, but it's at least somewhat mobile once you get your engine upgrades. You aren’t going to be sneaky-sneaky flanky-flanky like a light tank can, but you can reposition somewhat painlessly.

You do have enough armor to push objectives in a pinch - you aren’t totally without defensive capability. Unfortunately, you do have an open top so planes are going to be a major headache.

This is a tank that gets significantly better as you research it. I wouldn’t rush for the HEAT-FS round. I would get the upgraded APCR round to deal with the heaviest tanks, then go for the mobility upgrades, then get the HEAT-FS.

Overall it's decent but you will need to make sure you play it correctly - don’t play it like an Italian zoomy tank. In my mind, this is a lot like the 17-pounder Shermans you previously unlocked. It’s a tank that rewards good positioning and patience rather than aggressive tactics.

Pros

• Pintled mounted HMG
  
• Decent mobility
  
• Researchable HEAT-FS

Cons

• Open top
  
• Quite tall
  
• Poor armor for its rank
  
• Stock suffering syndrome

---

It is curious that Italy got two derp guns in quick succession which is probably more than any single lineup needs...however if you are so inclined you now have both the M109 and the 2S1.

The M109 is very tall and is deceptively lightly armored. If you're like me you popped in the protection analysis mode and briefly looked at the thickness of the turret armor.

"Oh nice, 32mm all around, thats enough so I don't get completely blasted by artillery and HMG fire for free."

Ah but you would be a fool just like me. You aren't protected by RHA - its aluminum alloy. Prepare your butt, because everyone is coming for it. Its embarrassing when Hellcats flank you and don't even bother shooting you with their main gun and just rake their HMG across your giant turret.

The M109 gets a giant HE shell that will one shot anything as long as you aim carefully when shooting at heavy targets.

You also get smoke shells and HE-VT. The smoke shell might be useful in the rare edge case, but the HE-VT seems like a waste of time. Your turret is slow and so are your shells. Plus you get a roof .50 so you should just use that instead.

Pros

• Giant HE shell
  
• Pintle mounted HMG
  
• Large crew (5)
  
• HE-VT and smoke shells
  
• Smoke launcher (3 uses)
  
• Decent reverse (-12kmh)
  
• Neutral steering
  
• Good suspension for firing on the move (in emergencies)

Cons

• Terrible armor will only protect you from rifle caliber bullets
  
• Very slow reload
  
• Two piece ammo means your reload gets extra punished if your loader dies
  
• Very slow turret

Remember friends, the formula for the Adjusted Barrel Size is [(Length * Diameter) + (Weight / Girth)] / Angle of Tip^2

---

Not half bad.

Its a HE slinger so you have to be careful with your aiming - but you can kill pretty much everything as long as you know how to aim to splash HE damage. Later on you get access to HEAT which will help with targets you can't figure out how to kill with your regular HE round. I personally would argue to git gud but you can stick with just HEAT if you want to. Technically you get access to HEVT but the gun aims so slowly that I'd say its probably not worth it. The rounds have decent velocity so its not hopeless - I just haven't had luck with them.

You're very light so even though you have no armor you do have decent mobility especially for a derp gun. It looks amphibious (the little fin things in the back) but it is NOT. I found this out so you don't have to drown your innocent crew.

Pros

• Access to HEVT rounds
  
• Researchable HEAT round is good
  
• Decent reverse (-10kmh)
  
• Turret is very isolated from the driver and engine
  
• Commander sight (5x)

Cons

• Irrelevant armor
  
• No secondary machine guns to clear obstacles
  
• VERY rear mounted turret
  
• Terrible gun depression (-3 degrees)
  
• Poor gun handling
  
• Kinda isolated in tech tree
  
• Commander sight is mostly blocked by stuff on your roof

Should I buy: Maybe. It doesn't really have a lineup to go with it but there are a few tanks you can run along side the Tigris. The premium M26 is probably a better mid tier choice overall.

Finally, a heavy tank for Italy. Who cares if its copypasta from Germany, its a tank with armor!

The Italian Tiger is really good as long as you know what you're doing.

If you're playing it with the mindset of "THE HISTORY CHANNEL TOLD ME THE TIGER WAS INVINCIBLE I WILL CRUISE CONTROL FORWARD TO VICTORY" you are no better than the Germanic hordes that have given their tech tree such a bad reputation. You have to play smart. Angle your armor - you're basically a box so point your corners towards people. Don't stare straight at someone unless you're ready to fire - your turret is a major weak spot so don't make it easy on your enemies. Don't overextend - getting flanked means you're dead. On the other hand, don't just sit in the back and snipe. You need to help push objectives and gain map control too. Find a balance that works for you.

Pros

• Very good armor when angled
  
• Very easy to angle armor
  
• Addon track armor makes a big difference when angled
  
• Very good APHE round
  
• Neutral steering
  
• Pintle mounted LMG
  
• You aren't guaranteed German teammates while using it

Cons

• High aggro target - will attract CAS
  
• Turret is a major weak spot that everyone knows about by now
  
• Armor is basically worthless if you aren't angling
  
• Very distinct engine sound
  
• Sorta isolated in the tech tree

---

Should I buy: Ehh...maybe. It'll help you grind out Tier IV and get your Tier V foothold, but its not a MUST HAVE tank by any means.

This is an almost carbon copy of the regular tech tree Pershing, but with some snazzy Italian regalia on it.

Unique Pros

• Bonus Italian Decals
  
• Slightly better acceleration than its non-premium Pershing

Unique Cons

• Slightly weaker ammo compared to regular tech tree Pershing

Overall: Fast, fun, effective. High skill floor.

In the 1970's, the C13 was designed as an export weapons platform to replace the M113. There were several different variants of the C13, including cannon equipped IFV, ATGM launcher, and even an anti-ship missile launcher. This particular version has a Cockerill 90 mm cannon (hence the T90 designation).

This is a good but tricky light tank. It has the general strengths and weaknesses you should expect from a light tank: its fast, but has very poor armor. While the ammo for your main weapon is nothing special, you do get 16x optics on the tank, making it decent at sniping. It doesn't get any rangefinders, so you'll just need to get good at eyeballing it. Thankfully your HEAT-FS round is effective at any range. Unfortunately, your main round is pretty bad. While it has good enough raw penetration to damage even heavy tanks if you know where to aim, it lacks one shot potential against anything except other light tanks. You'll need follow up shots to get a kill, or you can settle for assists by killing engines and scouting people.

Something to note that I failed to appreciate until I used this tank was that you will be beginning to face tanks with Hunter Killer systems (I am specifically thinking of the Leopard 1, but there may be others). So even if you kill the gunner, the commander can still control their main gun and fire back at you.

While the armor IS bad, the C13 is technically a troop transport vehicle so side hits on the empty back of the tank will do zero damage.

The C13 is unfortunately isolated in the tech tree. You’ll either drag up another lineup or bring it as a backup (i.e. last ditch) tank at a higher BR.

Pros

• Great optics (16x)
  
• Good acceleration and top speed
  
• Neutral steering
  
• Fast reverse
  
• Pintle mounted LMG
  
• Enough armor to protect against HMG's
  
• Light tank scouting and improved repair
  
• Smoke shells
  
• Smoke launcher

Cons

• Armed with chemical rounds ONLY
  
• HEAT-FS has poor post penetration damage
  
• No rangefinder to maximize effectiveness of your optics
  
• Poor armor overall
  
• Awkward battle rating

---

Overall: Hey this gokart with a big gun on it is really good. Why not give it two big guns?

This is essentially the FIAT 6614 but with two recoilless rifles instead of just one. Its weaknesses are exactly the same: slow in rough terrain, no armor, a gun that aims slowly, and long reload times.

The second recoilless rifle is an extremely strong addition due to your ability to both engage multiple targets as well as follow up shots that either miss or only partially damage enemies.

Make sure that you have "select secondary weapon" and "reset weapon selection" bound to something. You can technically aim and fire both weapons from the main sight, but if you're trying to snipe it’s just a lot easier when you just select each weapon individually. Additionally, because the base is the smaller R3 chassis, you get less ammo - only 10 shots. Make them count.

Unique pros compared to the FIAT

• TWO guns
  
• Better acceleration and top speed

Unique cons

• Very wobbly gun when moving around
  
• Double ammo consumption
  
• Less total ammo

---

Overall: Very solid medium tank. No stock suffering syndrome - its good out of the box and only gets better once you get the performance upgrades. Gets access to the surprisingly rare optical rangefinder upgrade.

The rangefinder is a godsend on those big open maps where you have cross map sightlines but don't want to figure out the range by shooting at a guy 3 or 4 times before you get things dialed in.

The only major problem with this tank is that its completely isolated by its battle rating. You can drag it up to 8.0 if you are desperate for a backup tank. As for me, I have to make sure everything is neat and tidy and the exact same number or else I get ANGRY.

Pros

• Stock APDS round is very good
  
• Access to HEATFS
  
• Access to rangefinder upgrade (~2400m)
  
• Pintle mounted HMG
  
• Decent armor
  
• Good initial acceleration
  
• Neutral steering
  
• Commander sights
  
• Commander fire control
  
• Hunter killer system

Cons

• Awkward battle rating
  
• 8kmh reverse feels slow

---

Overall: Great sniper. Strong at peeking, shooting and reversing into cover. Surprisingly strong while hull down.

The OF-40 was a very pleasant surprise. While the previous tanks in the line have been good or even great tanks, this newest tank in the line feels like something of a different tier entirely.

One surprising feature of this tank is how strong its armor is while hull down, at least against APHE and weaker chemical munitions. While hull down, you’ll be very hard to kill in one shot. A big part of this is because of the giant stereoscopic optic module in the front of your tank. It eats shots that penetrate. You can’t repair it sadly, but it has saved my crew many times. If you aren't playing hull down, you have a nice juicy ammo rack in the front behind your thin glacis. Try to hide it.

What about ATGMs and HESH? Good luck - you’re gonna get blapped. Hopefully you’re far enough away that it's hard for them to aim at you or you get enough forewarning to get out of the way.

Pros

• Stock APDS rounds
  
• Excellent optics (8x-16x)
  
• Researchable LRF
  
• Very good reverse speed (-25kmh)
  
• Good turret armor while hull down
  
• Neutral steering
  
• Pintle mounted LMG
  
• Smoke shells
  
• Commander Fire Control
  
• Commander Sight
  
• Hunter Killer System

Cons

• Very weak UFP and LFP
  
• Poor post penetration damage
  
• Engine deck restricts gun depression when aiming backwards

---

The ZSU is a tank destroyer disguised as an SPAA platform. Shooting down aircraft is doable but its real strength is its ability to wreck light and medium tanks. You may still struggle against the heavy tanks at this tier.

The recoil on the guns is quite high, so shooting at longer range targets can be tricky if you're trying to shoot quickly.

MLG Protip: Because of the high impulse from the guns, shooting behind you while driving forward acts as a major speed boost, which lets you keep up with light tanks at the start of the round. You can use this slavic nitro boost to get into early, aggressive positions.

Pros

• Strong APHE round for ground targets
  
• High ROF for ground targets
  
• High shell velocity
  
• Fast aiming speed
  
• Two gunners
  
• Large crew (6)

Cons

• Terrible armor
  
• Open top
  
• Filled to the brim with ammo
  
• Poor gun depression (-5 degrees)
  
• Below average ROF when shooting at air targets
  
• Prolonged fire is very inaccurate (arguably a plus when shooting at air targets)

---

The BTR is in a weird spot. On one hand its very flexible - its able to reposition faster than other vehicles and its able to engage light targets and aircraft easily. On the other hand, the stock performance is kinda bad and you're in a BR bracket that has so many heavy tanks that even your APDS rounds might be completely unable to penetrate their armor.

Italy doesn't have strong choices around the BTR at the moment so its either going to be a supplemental vehicle at a higher BR or it will be part of a very small lineup on its own.

According to Gaijin the most powerful thing that a tank can have is mobility more than anything else - if a tank is fast that means its extremely powerful. Therefore if you aren't using your mobility, you're gimping yourself. Get on the flanks and even if you can't kill a heavy tank you can track and barrel torture it or at the very least you can just scout it and run away.

You can technically engage air targets but your aiming speed is pretty slow so tracking targets that aren't moving directly towards you will be difficult.

Pros

• Researchable APDS rounds are a godsend
  
• Fast reload
  
• Good elevation for air targets
  
• Mostly empty space
  
• Good top speed
  
• Decent reverse (-12 kmh)
  
• Light tank scouting and improved repair
  
• Smoke launchers (3 salvos, doesn't cover very much area)
  
• Gets cool sandbags and razor wire compared to the Russian model (sandbags may look like bonus armor but they don't really do anything other than look cool)

Cons

• Terrible armor
  
• Low ROF
  
• Overheats after about 90 shots
  
• Unstable while shooting
  
• Hard to see where you're shooting sometimes because of smoke
  
• Poor gun depression (-5 deg)
  
• Stock mobility is surprisingly poor
  
• Poor turning radius

Overall: At its battle rating I preferred the R3 and the OF 40, but its still a great tank.

Should I buy: Ehhh...maybe. If you're having problems grinding while in Tier V, its worth it. It is not a MUST HAVE tank, but its also not a waste of GE either.

Pros

• Flexible ammo - Strong APDS and good HEAT-FS for more difficult targets
  
• Frontal turret and breech armor is decent, lower front plate is surprisingly strong
  
• Pintle mounted HMG
  
• Smoke shells, smoke launchers (2 salvos)
  
• Neutral steering
  
• Improved stereoscopic rangefinder (<2200m)
  
• Commander Sight (1-7x magnification)
  
• Commander Fire Control
  
• Hunter Killer System

Cons

• A bit slow (i.e. agonizingly slow for Italy)
  
• Main gun has fixed magnification (8x)
  
• Bringing more then 37 rounds stores ammo in the front of tank
  
• Big turret ring
  
• Huge commander cupola

---

Overall: Fast and frustrating

Should I buy: No, unless you're a stupid collector like me.

Looking at the AUBL, you'd think it would be a hellishly good light tank. Blisteringly fast and armed with APFSDS and a stabilizer! What could go wrong?
Firing on the move is difficult because your bad gun depression will cause your sights to bounce a lot anyway. If you miss, you're in trouble because your reload speed is slower than average. If you hit, your tiny dart RARELY kills in one hit. Extremely long range sniping is difficult because you do not have a rangefinder.
Its still really good at flanking and being a nuisance but compared to the other Italian rat cars, it just feels weak...AND EXPENSIVE. Holy crap this thing is expensive on the market (as of writing its over $100). Its just not worth it, as cool as it seems.

Pros

• Great acceleration and top speed
  
• Mostly stabilized (up to ~70kmh?)
  
• APFSDS
  
• Smoke launchers
  
• Pintle mounted LMG
  
• Light tank scouting and improved repair

Cons

• Below average reload (7.8->6 sec)
  
• Poor gun depression (-6 deg)
  
• Poor gun depression limits how effective your stabilizer is at higher speeds
  
• Very poor armor
  
• Frustratingly bad post penetration damage
  
• Pintle mounted LMG is weirdly sluggish
  
• No rangefinder
  
• Very expensive to buy on the market

Overall: High skill floor due to low damage:ROF ratio. Actually kinda decent if you aim carefully and shoot first.

Spookston goes wild for the HSTVL and yet completely ignores the Italian version of it. Absolutely blatant display of bias if you ask me.

The main strength of this vehicle is its 2 second assisted loader. No one expects the follow up shot to be ready so fast and you can occasionally bait people into committing for what they think will be an easy kill.

The problem is that you only have a 60mm dart. While it has enough penetration to go through lower plates, it will struggle to reach deeper crew members. Tanks like the Merkava are almost impossible to kill from the front. You will also occasionally struggle to kill light vehicles from the sides due to the low spalling.

This is a vehicle that is best used alongside some good old track and barrel torture. While this strategy is usable by all vehicles, I find it extra important with the 60/70. You'll need the extra time to either pick apart crew one by one, or to reposition yourself. One shots are possible but are difficult due to your poor post pen damage.

Manage your ammo! Your magazine is decently sized but running out of first stage ammo outside of a control point means an extremely long reload (almost 30 seconds for a single round).

You do get access to HE-VT ammo, but it has an arming distance of 500 meters which makes it very difficult to use on jets. Helicopters hovering and firing ATGM's are the targets you want to engage.

Pros

• Enough armor to protect against HMG from the front
  
• Turret has strong frontal armor vs chemical rounds
  
• Great reverse (-32 kmh), neutral steering
  
• Starts with APFSDS rounds
  
• HE-VT rounds (researchable)
  
• 2 second assisted loader (16 round magazine)
  
• Above average horizontal aiming, excellent elevation speed
  
• LRF, Gen 1 thermals (gunner), smoke launcher (4 salvos)
  
• Great elevation for non-SPAA vehicle (+40 degrees)
  
• Light tank scouting, improved repair, and recon UAV
  
• Commander topics (4-10x)
  
• Commander fire control
  
• Hunter killer system

Cons

• APFSDS round has very poor post penetration damage
  
• Very poor armor overall
  
• Below average gun depression (-8 degrees)
  
• Small crew (3)
  
• Empty magazine has very long reload (23 seconds for first round, full reload takes over 270 seconds)
  
• No pintle mounted machine gun for helicopters and ATGMs

---

Overall: Extremely fun, flexible, and effective.

There's a reason why I chose the Centauro as the guide cover picture. Italy got this one right. The Stryker? Just a copy of Italian perfection.

First, I'll talk about the bad stuff.
Your turret is placed in the back half of the tank. This makes peeking corners very difficult because your front will stick out long before you can get your gun on target. Peeking backwards is also a bad idea because all your ammo is stored in your butt. Best to just not get in situations where you're forced to peek a corner.
While it is fully stabilized, the stabilizer mysteriously turns off at high speed (~75kmh). This isn't too bad but it is something to be aware of.
Much worse than this is the poor gun depression that you have, only -6 degrees. This can make aiming while going over even moderately bumpy terrain tricky.
Even worse than THAT is the turret traverse speed. Its very slow and since you're wheeled you can't just turn in place to help lay the gun on target. You need to anticipate where enemies are likely to approach. More than anything else this is the thing that has gotten me killed (outside of just me being an idiot).

Now for the good stuff.
You're fast. Extremely fast. Getting up to your top speed can be difficult based on the terrain, but you will at the very worst still be as fast as other light tanks on your team. Normally, tanks with stock HEAT-FS are a real pain in the butt while stock, but you can steal all the caps for yourself and get that sweet sweet RP for your parts and FPE.
Once you unlock your first APFSDS round (which is rank 1), you're good to go. Even without a rangefinder you should be able to get rounds on target easily.
Going on the super out of the way flanking routes is no big deal for you, and as a light tank its very lucrative as well. Get your spots, take shots on isolated tanks, and rake in the dosh.


Pros

• ICONIC Italian vehicle
  
• Extremely fast top speed (110 km/h)
  
• Great reverse (-23 km/h)
  
• Researchable DM23 APFSDS (ignore raw penetration numbers - its good)
  
• Pintle mounted LMG
  
• LRF/LWS
  
• Thermals (Gen 1)
  
• Light tank scouting, repairs, and UAV
  
• Smoke launchers (4 salvos)
  
• Smoke rounds

Cons

• Stock HEAT-FS
  
• Very poor armor overall
  
• Poor gun depression (-6 degrees)
  
• Turret traverse is slow
  
• Turret is placed in the back so peeking corners can be tricky
  
• Wheeled vehicle suffers a bit in rough terrain (especially on certain maps)
  
• Wide turning circle

---

The Centauro got fat.

This is effectively the same as the previous vehicle except its heavier. You sacrifice about 10% of your power to weight ratio for some bolt on ERA that isn't really going to save your butt against anything. You are slightly compensated by having access to DM33 ammo, but I've heard a lot of Centauro drivers say that the ROMOR is a downgrade overall.

Honestly the worst part of the ROMOR is you have to suffer through the stock grind all over again.

Unique Pros

• Access to DM33
  
• Additional ERA on turret

Unique Cons

• Additional ERA makes your power:weight about 10% worse
  
• No smoke shells
  
• I find the spare wheel on the back esthetically very displeasing

---

Overall: Very mobile MBT with excellent gun handling and which doesn't start with a stupid HEAT round.

The qualities that made the Mk.1 so strong is less exceptional when you're at a higher battle rating.

Your armor (or lack thereof) coupled with your first stage ammo being stored center of mass means you will pop like a light tank any time you get shot. The upside is that you at least get to enjoy light tank levels of mobility in this thing (which is even more improved on the premium MTCA).

There isn't too much to say about the Mk. 2. Its not overpowered or anything like that, its just a good vehicle. The only bad thing I can say about it is that the LRF module is a tier 4 module. Its too bad they don't let you unlock the optical rangefinder on it as an early upgrade (its the weird bar across the top of the tank in x-ray mode).

Pros

• Stock APDS shell
  
• Armor can withstand autocannons from the front (kinda)
  
• DM23 (Tier 3)
  
• Excellent gun handling
  
• Pintle mounted HMG (excellent at killing helicopters)
  
• Smoke launcher (4 salvos)
  
• Smoke shells
  
• LRF
  
• Good mobility
  
• Great reverse (-25kmh)
  
• Commander optics (3-10x)
  
• Commander fire control
  
• Hunter killer system

Cons

• Minimum gun magnification is high (poor situational awareness while aiming)
  
• Irrelevant armor against MBT's
  
• LRF is tier 4 and you really notice how long it takes to unlock it
  
• Ammo stored all over the place
  
• No thermals

---

Overall: Suffers while stock, but quickly turns into a great medium tank. Very good commander optics.

I've heard the OF40 called "the Italian Leopard" and after finally playing the Leo 1A5 I understand why. Its an accurate description. Overall, the Leopard is a great tank. It has no critical weaknesses and it has plenty of high tech goodies on it. Once you get the LRF/LWS module unlocked, using the commander sight to snipe is a lot of fun - it has an insane amount of zoom on it (20x). The LWS part of the module continues to be extremely useful in warning you about incoming missiles from strike drones and helicopters. Getting lased by a ground vehicle usually means you're about to die but its still a fringe benefit. MLG Pro Gamer tip: You can also lase your allies to annoy them if they have a LWS module.

Starting out you will be suffering a bit. Your stock mobility is fine but your HEAT round...well...it can get kills but it's quite difficult to use at long range without the rangefinder so its highly map dependent. The good news is that your armor is surprisingly good against autocannons, even stuff like the Puma! Basically your armor gives you enough time to get your shot off. If you miss, you're still going to die because while you're reloading they're probably taking their time to sneak darts in through your turret ring or destroying your barrel.

Pros

• DM23 is a tier 1 module
  
• Great reverse speed (-25km/h)
  
• Good stationary turning
  
• UFP and turret armor is surprisingly strong against most autocannons
  
• Pintle mounted LMG (great for killing ATGM's)
  
• Gen 1 thermals (gunner only)
  
• LRF/LWS
  
• Dozer blade
  
• Smoke grenades (4 salvos)
  
• Commander sight (4-20x)
  
• Commander fire control
  
• Hunter killer system

Cons

• Stock suffering syndrome
  
• Mobility is not up to the Italian Standard
  
• Poor armor overall
  
• Poor gun handling
  
• Pintle mounted LMG has poor elevation

---

Pros
Fully stabilized
Radar equipped
Very high rate of fire
Very responsive turret
No reloading
Inaccuracy can be a good thing when shooting at aircraft
Commander sight (5x)


Cons
Irrelevant armor
Giant ammo racks
Very poor gun depression (-4 deg)
Radar has limited search capabilities
Very poor anti-tank capabilities
Overheats after about 7.5 seconds of continuous shooting
Lengthy reload after overheating (~12 seconds)
Inaccuracy can be a bad thing when shooting at tanks

---

Overall: Mixed bag. Unfortunate battle rating. Effective as anti-air but has a high skill floor.

The SIDAM has no radar, despite being at a high enough battle rating where even simple radar equipped SPAA start showing up. There is a silver lining: its Optronic (computer based TV tracking + LRF) tracking system doesn't warn aircraft with RWS that you're on the battlefield. It does not let them know your approximate location. It also does not warn aircraft that you have locked onto them. This will require you to identify targets with your Mk. 1 Eyeball device. With no thermals, this makes it quite difficult when aircraft are far away. 25mm HE belts + 2200RPM = dead planes...at close ranges (<1.5km). An additional benefit to having optical tracking is that it can lock on to recon drones. In my experience, early radar SPAA has trouble getting a radar lock onto these tiny things.

It does eventually get access to an APDS belt, but for balance reasons it only gets 60 rounds for that belt, which is about 1.5 seconds of shooting (so fire in bursts). It's really only effective against light tanks and close range side shots against heavier tanks (81mm penetration max) but it's better than nothing because your HE belts will only tickle enemy armor. I really need to emphasize this - do not use your HE belts against enemy ground vehicles. You cannot destroy tracks or barrels, you will not damage even light vehicles. Shoot enemy vehicles only as a last act of defiance before you bravely explode.

While the turret is extremely responsive, the vehicle platform that its mounted on is pretty bad. Its slow, with a wimpy engine that can't even climb out of small craters while stock, and it also has no armor. Weirdly, the gunner is not stationed in the turret, that is the commander. So even if the crew member in the turret gets sniped, you will still be able to shoot. This is not to be confused with Hunter Killer Systems in later MBTs.

Note: The wiki says that the SIDAM is unable to lock onto targets more than +20 degrees, but this is incorrect as far as I can tell. You can lock onto any target you can point your gun at. You may be unable to lock on to targets in 3rd person view, however.

Pros

• Extremely responsive turret
  
• Great rate of fire
  
• Aircraft are not alerted to lock-on
  
• Access to APDS belts
  
• Gunner is hidden inside chassis, not in turret
  
• Great at killing recon drones

Cons

• No radar
  
• Stock shells do zero damage to ground vehicles
  
• Maximum range for HE is 1.75km
  
• APDS belts have very limited ammo
  
• Very sluggish chassis
  
• No armor
  
• Small crew (3)
  
• Sustained fire will overheat guns and require a long cooldown period

---

Overall: Use it because you have to, not because you want to.

This is one of the ATGM carriers of all time.

There are worse ones (see: Japan and Israel) but there are plenty of better ones (see: Russia and Germany). Outside of the obvious drawbacks like limited armor, exposed gunner, and long reload times, the one thing that really made this difficult to use was its horizontal gun traverse limitations. 45 degrees to either side sounds like its plenty to work with, but I found it very frustrating especially in urban environments.

The rank 1 ITOW upgrade really saves this thing from complete irrelevancy. It has very good 1-shot potential against pretty much everything, although sometimes its a bit of a skill check to see if you know where to aim on heavier tanks.

You can occasionally survive against kinetic rounds since you're lightly armored, but that's more of a nuisance to your opponents than an actual strength.

Pros

• Upgraded ITOW is strong
  
• Superior gun depression (-20 degrees)
  
• Comes with a HMG with good elevation
  
• Amphibious
  
• Enough frontal armor to withstand HMG fire

Cons

• Very poor armor overall
  
• Limited horizontal coverage for main weapon (45 degrees)
  
• Slow acceleration
  
• Below average top speed (in game stat card is inaccurate)
  
• Poor turning
  
• Exposed gunner
  
• High profile

---

Overall: Suffers a bit until you unlock the APDS belts, then it swaps over to pure fun zooming around ganking unsuspecting people.

You're going to suffer a lot until you can get the APDS belts. After that you'll eat light tanks for breakfast and even MBT's get shredded as long as you're on their side. If you're fortunate enough to not immediately die after engaging a MBT from the front then the tried and true strategy of Track & Barrel Torture is the way to go. Just watch out for the occasional French or Russian tank that have high caliber secondary autocannons.

While jets are a bit tricky, helicopters are easy kills. I bring a single belt of the default ammo for its HE rounds for just such an occasion (later on there's a full HE belt but I would wait to research that until last). If you're worried about helicopters doing an early rocket rush, the VBC is an excellent first spawn.

The laser warning system is extremely useful against helicopters and strike drones. If you get a LWS warning, get close to a tall building and wait a bit. If you're in the open you'll have to pop some smoke and pray they miss. The trickiest part of all this is waiting long enough for the missile to actually reach you. After you get the APFSDS belts and mobility upgrades (filters, engine, transmission) I would strongly suggest getting the LRF/LWS upgrade. You aren't going to be using the LRF part of it very often because ideally you're ambushing things at close range on their side.

Defensively you're a light tank so don't rely on your armor. The main threats to you are SPAA like the Falcon and Gepard and any other light tank with an autocannon. If you're desperate, your engine is located in the front so it can potentially absorb some hits from enemy autocannons if you have to push into someone.

Pros

• Great mobility
  
• Very responsive turret
  
• High ROF
  
• Excellent gun elevation for non-SPAA
  
• Gen 1 thermals
  
• LRF/LWS
  
• Smoke grenades (4 salvos)
  
• Light tank scouting, improved repair, and UAV

Cons

• Wide turning circle
  
• Poor armor against anything stronger than HMG's
  
• Cannot engage MBT's frontally (outside of track and barrel torture)
  
• Stock suffering syndrome

---

Decent armor, decent mobility, and a decent gun make this tank a joy to use aggressively.

Its a bit difficult starting out since you only have HEAT, but I would recommend you ignore the siren song of the tier 1 dart (its not great) and focus on parts+FPE. Once you unlock FPE you can unlock the MUCH better tier 2 dart. Just hang in there, its not too bad.

The main strategy of this tank is to point it toward your enemy and just full send it. You're decently mobile (going forward) so you should be leveraging your good armor by being aggressive. In downtiers you basically shouldn't be letting go of the W key. Just go forward and smash everyone.

I would strongly recommend taking no more than the maximum capacity of your autoloader, which is 22 rounds. You store secondary ammo inside of the fuel tanks. I don't have to explain why that's bad for your long term outlook.

Pros

• Absolutely overpowered in downtiers
  
• Strong UFP and turret cheek armor, plus giant breech can partially protect crew
  
• Pintle mounted HMG
  
• Autoloader (7.1 second reload, 22 rounds)
  
• Smoke launcher (6 salvos)
  
• LRF, dozer blade, ESS (3 uses)
  
• Commander optics (5x)

Cons

• Very weak LFP
  
• Fuel tanks everywhere mean you will be set on fire if you get shot
  
• Stock suffering syndrome (especially before you get FPE)
  
• Very poor gun elevation speed
  
• No neutral steering
  
• Small crew (3)
  
• Terrible reverse (-4 kmh)
  
• Poor gun depression (-6 degrees)
  
• IR Searchlight (gives away your position if you don't turn it off)

Fun fact: The T-72A (the model the export M1 was based on) was nicknamed Dolly Parton by US intelligence due to its bulging turret cheek and roof armor.

Should I get it: Totally worth it, extremely good tank.

Overall: Capability wise - a copy of the OF-40 Mk.2 but with a much bigger engine which gives it superior mobility even if its top speed is the same.

A carbon copy of the tech tree OF-40 Mk2 except with an upgraded 1000HP engine (23.3 hp/t vs 19.3 hp/t). Note that this doesn't mean you have a better top speed - just better acceleration and overall mobility.

This is the first tank in this guide I would recommend to someone planning on skipping the early stages of the normal tech tree.

*ahem* I will now use this space to argue against doing that.
There are a lot of unique and fun vehicles in the normal tech tree that you'll be missing out on.
Plus, everyone hates 1 death leavers. Don't be that guy who buys a top tier premium and then dies in 30 seconds and leaves.
Also, c'mon, we both know that the top top tier Italian lineup is hot garbage right now, so why even bother rushing to that point?
Lastly and most importantly: If this would be your first top tier tank, I would strongly encourage you to just don't. You will be a liability to your team. You don't have the map experience or vehicle knowledge to play effectively. Heck, I don't feel like I have enough map experience yet for some maps.

Anyway, I absolutely love this vehicle. The improved mobility really lets you be hyper aggressive on any terrain and it makes this a beast.

Unique Pros

• 1000hp engine vs 830hp engine (better acceleration and hill performance but no difference in top speeds)

Unique Cons

• None
  
• Doesn't get any cool camos :(

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Should I get: Its definitely worth it. The Centauro is a lot of fun and the gen 2 thermals make long range target spotting even easier. I personally prefer the MTCA because its much more flexible, but theres nothing wrong with the VRCC either outside of its price.

This Spanish Centauro is effectively a carbon copy of the ROMOR...except it doesn't get the ROMOR ERA.

The lack of ERA is technically a downgrade, but in my opinion it doesn't matter at this rank. Your pitiful armor is irrelevant 99.99% of the time.

Unique Pros

• 1 additional LMG on the roof
  
• Gen 2 thermals
  
• Cool skull on the front bumper
  
• Doesn't have that stupid wheel on the back

Unique Cons

• ERA has turned into spaced armor instead

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Overall: Really really sucks when stock. Getting APFSDS significantly improves your experience. Strong ambush sniper due to its optics and reverse speed.

I could see how the Ariete was a strong tank at one point. Like most Italian vehicles it's fast and has a good gun but lacks armor. The problem is mostly the matchmaker. You will be uptiered a LOT. Until you get your first dart, you will probably want to kill yourself just to end the suffering. Magic Russian ERA will eat your shots for breakfast and ask for more.
Once you get your upgraded ammo, things get a lot better. You still need to place your shots carefully but your ability to engage enemies frontally improves drastically. You still need to play more cautiously than other MBT's due to your terrible armor but in a strong position its easy to spot a guy and pop up, shoot, and retreat back into cover. That's your bread and butter gameplay.
While your optics are very good and darts are easy to aim, very long range sniping can still be a bit difficult because your rangefinder is one of the last things you'll research.

Pros

• DM23 is a tier 1 module (DM33 is tier 4 sadly)
  
• Good acceleration, top speed, and reverse
  
• Good gun handling
  
• Good frontal armor against autocannons
  
• Smoke launchers (4 salvos)
  
• Above average optics for its BR (8-12x)
  
• Gen 1 thermals (gunner only)
  
• LRF
  
• Both coax and pintle mounted LMG's have good ROF for anti-ATGM duty
  
• Commander optic (2.5-10x)
  
• Commander fire control
  
• Hunter killer system

Cons

• Stock HEAT-FS is mega ultra suffering
  
• Irrelevant armor vs full sized APFSDS
  
• Very weak LFP
  
• Engine deck restricts gun depression
  
• No "safe ammo" in blowout panels
  
• LRF is a tier 4 module
  
• Poor matchmaking, endless uptiers

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Image may be inaccurate since the PSO kit is a tier 4 module, will update picture when researched

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Image may be inaccurate since the WAR kit is a tier 4 module, will update picture when researched

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The SIDAM Mistral is exactly what it says on the box. It is the exact same chassis with the exact same guns except now you get 6 Mistral missiles. You still don't get any radar but at this point you should be used to it.

The Mistral missiles are pretty good in my experience. They're all aspect which means you don't need to see the jet exhaust in order to lock on. They can also lock onto helicopters and even scout drones (I'd recommend against wasting missiles on scout drones most of the time).

The main downside to them is that each time you fire one missile you have a 5 second wait before the missile seeker is ready to fire again. Once the missile is ready to fire, it will remain on for 1 minute before you have to restart the process.

When firing missiles at distant targets, I would strongly recommend to first lock onto them with your IRST so that you can continue tracking them in case your missile, uh, misses.

Unique Pros

• 6 shots of decent AA missiles

Unique Cons

• Missiles have a low effective rate of fire
  
• Much higher BR
  
• No thermals at a BR where everyone has thermals
  
• You gotta grind the exact same vehicle all over again! Enjoy!

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Pros
Excellent reverse speed
Responsive turret
Tracerless HE-VT
Researchable APFSDS ammo (tier 4)
Separate search radar and IRST tracking
Thermals (gen 1, gunner)
Commander sight (2.5-10x)
Commander fire control
Hunter killer system

Cons
Irrelevant armor
Large ammo storage areas
Glacial reload time when empty (10 sec first round -> 4:45 full reload)
Extremely limited APFSDS ammo
Very poor gun depression (-5 deg)
Extremely large target

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Pros
Very responsive turret
High ROF
Excellent gun elevation for non-SPAA
2 ready to fire ATGM's (no deploying launcher delays)
Can equip top attack TOW-2B
Light tank scouting, repair, and UAV


Cons
Must be stationary to fire ATGM

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The HITFIST is pretty decent simply due to the recent change where they gave it full APDS belts by default. No stock bulls*** belts with 2/3rds useless HE shells.

You trade rate of fire for better penetration and damage per shot, which is a sidegrade at best.

You can research both tandem warhead and top attack ATGM's, but you can only equip one at a time. For hilly maps, the top attack TOW-2B is a much safer option even if its less reliable. For flat maps I'd probably go with the tandem warhead TOW-2A just because it has better 1 shot potential. Use whatever works best for you.

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The Freccia is essentially an upgraded VBC - its the same gun and same chassis, just with Spikes and IRST.

You will never have to spawn SPAA first ever again - this thing will shut down helicopter rushes like nobodies business. The Spikes are excellent at killing helos and any helicopter that gets too close will be an easy kill with IRST. Your turret isn't quite fast enough to make it reliable against jets at this rank - they're way too fast. Regardless, your early game anti-air capability is very strong and makes this a great first spawn if you're worried about that sort of thing.

Spikes are decent against ground targets but they aren't the wunderweapon that you might think. First of all, you can't manually aim or shoot them. No lock, no shoot. Its not super clear to me what exactly you're locking onto but its something arbitrary.

As you can see, this is a clear side profile of this IT-1 but the Spike refuses to lock.


However if I move just a tiny bit forward it locks onto something in the front.


So basically just spam the lock on button and pray is my best advice.

Note: They have recently changed the spike lock-on code and it is much more generous with what it is willing to actually lock onto.

At close range your missile will always go directly to the target, but at certain intermediate ranges (200-300m) it may try to top attack and miss because of it. Its really hard to predict its behavior.

You will have difficulty locking on to tanks that are hiding near wrecked vehicles. The missile will generally miss in situations like that.

In conclusion - when using the Spike its best to fire both missiles at your target just to make sure. Against helicopters you can get away with 1 missile if you need to engage multiple targets.

Other than that, its a light wheely tank. Flank and spank is your gameplan. Your default belts are garbage since they're 66% HE shells, but using your missiles and capping points will quickly let you unlock your APDS belts and after that you're set.

Pros

• Great mobility
  
• IRST tracking
  
• 2 ready to fire (and forget) Spike missiles
  
• No deploying ATGM launcher
  
• LRF/LWS
  
• Smoke launcher (4 salvos)
  
• Pintle mounted LMG
  
• Good turret speed
  
• Light tank improved repair, scouting, and recon UAV
  
• Commander optics (2.5-10x)
  
• Commander fire control
  
• Hunter killer system

Cons

• End of line RP penalty
  
• Some stock suffering
  
• Irrelevant armor against large caliber weapons
  
• Cannot fire missile unless its locked - no manual aiming
  
• Missiles are picky about locking on to targets
  
• Poor accuracy at certain intermediate ranges
  
• Small crew (3)

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Pros

Cons

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This space reserved for future rank 8 premiums. You know they're coming eventually. :^)

War Thunder does a pretty terrible job at communicating some of the more subtle game mechanics. There are many features that the game doesn't even tell you about. We have moved this section to its own guide as it keeps growing and its easier to just point people in the right direction instead of keeping multiple copies of it up to date.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3118897418

Please check it out if you're interested in ESOTERIC KNOWLEDGE.

If you've enjoyed my guide or if you think its crap, please let me know. Feedback is appreciated since it helps me improve.

I'd also like to thank everyone who gave me an award for my guide. Its just internet points but I appreciate the generosity. It makes me happy whenever I get a notification someone has sent me a goofy award.

Thank you to InFerNos1 for doing the research on the more accurate/detailed names, you saved me so much time because I love looking into the proper names of things. You can find his mod for the autistically detailed names over here at nexusmods.[www.nexusmods.com]

More detailed information for the Italian ground forces can be found at the War Thunder wiki[wiki.warthunder.com].

If you're interested in the Swedish tech tree, or the French tech tree please check out my guides on them!
https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2649904720
https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2810480744

2022.1.30

• Initial Draft

2022.12.31

• Finally published guide

2023.1.7

• Tech tree TL;DR up to date
  
• Waiting on hangar to stop being holiday mode so I can finish taking pictures
  
• Lots of fiddling with minor things

2023.1.11

• Got the high tier tech section copied over and up to date. The Christmas hangar is over with so I'm going to go in and update the missing tank pictures soon(tm)

2023.1.13

• Finished all pictures for tech tree, for now. Top tier MBT's need updated when I actually research the armor kits for them.

2023.2.13

• Vehicles and tech tree up to date with current research. Grinding is hell, please send help.

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2023.3.7 (Major Update: Sky Guardians)

• Placeholder section made for Ariete AMV PT1

2023.6.13

• Broke down and bought the AUBL/74 HVG, will do a thorough writeup eventually but first impressions are: this was a waste of money.

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2023.6.19 (Major Update: La Royale)

• Added placeholder for the Freccia
  
• Updated tech tree image

2023.7.24

• Finished Ariete and SIDAM Mistral sections
  
• Tech tree summary updated

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2023.9.19 (Major Update: Sons of Attila)

• Completely reworked the tech tree
  
• Re-arranged each section to reflect the new tech tree layout
  
• Added sections for all the Hungarian vehicles (Csaba, Turan I, Zrinyi II, Turan III, 2s1, BTR-80A, T-72-M1, Leo 2a4 HU, KF41)
  
• Added in new Italian vehicles (ZSU-57-2, ZSU-23-4)

2023.10.30

• Written everything up to the 2s1
  
• Copypasta for the ZSU-57-2 despite not unlocking it yet, its the same as always
  
• Added/updated pictures for everything missing (Halloween hangar :\ might change my screenshots later idk)

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2023.10.31 (Major Update: Kings of Battle)

• Added sections for the Leobofors and the Chodecannon

2023.11.18

• Finished review of leobofors and chodecannon
  
• Updated tech tree (added SPAA icons and fixed a mistake where I doubled up the zsu57-2)
  
• Started fixing the stupid Halloween placeholder images

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2023.12.14 (Major Update: Air Superiority)

• Moved the AMV to rank 8
  
• Finished the Breda 52 section
  
• Added section for new Tigris premium, maybe I'll get it over Christmas so I can evaluate it.

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2024.3.13 (Major Update: Alpha Strike)

• On vacation lul

2024.3.19

• Added placeholder for Centauro RGO
  
• Realized I need to update tech tree image for the tier 8 changes (lol Italy at top tier lmao)
  
• Removed high tier tech section, added link to the guide that replaced it

2024.4.26

• Updated image for Csaba, Turan 1, Zrinyi II, Turan III, Breda 90/53, 2S1, BTR-80, T-72M1, Leo2a4, KF41, ZSU-23-4, Tiger E, Centauro RGO, ZSU-57-2
  
• Updated tech tree
  
  

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  2024.6.19 (Major Update: Seek and Destroy)
  
  • Added placeholder for Leo 2A7V HU
  2024.6.20
  
  • Updated tech tree
  2024.8.22
  
  • General editorializing, been playing other tech trees so not much research progress
  
  

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  2024.9.10 (Major Update: Dance of Dragons
  
  • Italy didn't get any new vehicles this patch :(
    
  • The Freccia did get a fancy new commander sight at least - updated preview picture