3d cv35 l3 35 italian - CV35 L3/35 ITALIAN LIGHT TANK WWII by De Espona

The L3/35 was developed from imported British Carden-Loyd Mark VIs (designated CV29 in Italian service, CV stood for Carro Veloce, 'fast tank'). It was built as the CV-33 in 1933, but was retrofitted as the CV-35 in 1935 and renamed the L3/35 in 1938. The official Italian classification of this vehicle was as a light tank, however this type of vehicle is classified as a tankette by Anglo-American militaries.

The L3/35 was a lightly armored two-man vehicle typically armed with two tandem machine guns. The differences between the L3/33 and the L3/35 were not many.

In addition to seeing action in the Second Italo-Abyssinian War the Spanish Civil War and the Slovak-Hungarian War, the L3 was used almost everywhere that Italian troops fought during World War II. L3s were found on the Italian/French border, North Africa, Italian East Africa, the Balkans, and Russia.

On 10 June 1940, when Italy entered World War II, the Royal Army possessed only about 100 M11/39 medium tanks in two tank battalions. L3 tankettes were still equipping all three Italian armored divisions, the tank battalions in the motorized divisions, the light tank squadron group in each 'Fast' (Celere) division, and numerous independent tank battalions.