Cannone da 47/32 M35

The Cannone da 47/32 M35 was an Austrian artillery piece produced under license in Italy during World War II. It was used both as an infantry gun and an anti-tank gun which it proved to be successful at, especially when equipped with HEAT (Italian: "Effetto Pronto") rounds.

History
The Austrian firm of Böhler originally designed and manufactured the gun. In the 1930s Italy bought some of these guns from Böhler, and then began to produce the weapon under license, continuing its development. The Cannone da 47/32 M35 was the main armament in the M13/40 medium tank, the M14/41 medium tank, and experimentally on the AB 41 armored car (see photograph), and the 47/32 self-propelled gun. The M15/42 featured a slightly improved version of this gun (the 47/40).

The 47/32 was built in two versions, the first with semipneumatic disk wheels, and the second (in 1939, from which the name 47/32 mod. 39) with improved barrel and suspension (in some series also electron wheels with celerflex semipneumatics).To tow this piece, the tractor OCI-780 CM and the light tank L3 were used, but these projects were soon abandoned as the gun was subjected to breaking at the axles spindles and shanks.

Characteristics

 * Caliber: 47 mm (1.85 in)
 * Length: 1.68 m (5 ft 6 in)
 * Length of Bore: 1.525 m (5 ft)
 * Length of Rifling: 1.33 m (4 ft 4.3 in)
 * Travelling Weight: 315 kg (694.5 lb)
 * Weight in Action: 277 kg (610.6 lb)
 * Elevation: -15 degrees to +56 degrees
 * Traverse: 62 degrees
 * Muzzle Velocity: 630 m/s (2,067 ft/s) for AP; 250 m/s (820 ft/s) HEAT
 * Range: 7,000 m (7,655 feet) - HEAT
 * Shell Weight: 1.44 kg (3.175 lb) AP; 2.37 kg (5.225 lb) HEAT
 * Armor Penetration AP: 58 mm (2.3 in) at 100 m (110 yards); 43 mm (1.7 in) at 500 m (550 yards)
 * Armor Penetration HEAT: unknown

Users
The same weapon was also used in the Austrian, Chinese, Dutch, Finnish, Romanian, Estonian, Latvian, Soviet(Captured Ex-Latvian guns) and Swiss armies.

While not an original user, the German army captured several of these guns during their annexation of Austria and their conquest of the Netherlands (4.7 cm Pak 187(h)) and the Soviet Union (4.7 cm PaK 196(r)) and took them into service. Some of these guns where donated to the Italians, after their surrender, these were recaptured along with Italian models (4.7 cm Pak 177(i)). These guns were then reassigned to German and RSI (Axis-aligned Italian) units or donated to Croatia.