75/18 M41

75/18 M41

Lancia 3Ro (100/17)

75/32 M41

75/18 M41

Lancia 3Ro (100/17)

75/32 M41

Italy

II Rank

Battle rating:

AB	RB	SB
2.0	2.0	2.0

Class:

Tank destroyer

Research:7 900

Purchase:10 000

Show in game

Description

The Semovente 75/18 M41 is a rank II Italian tank destroyer with a battle rating of 2.0 (AB/RB/SB). It was introduced in Update 1.85 "Supersonic".

General info

Survivability and armour

The Semovente 75/18 offers little in the way of effective protection, with its primary defence against enemy tanks being its small frontal profile. the 50mm frontal plate struggles to keep out even rank 1 British and US guns at close range, while the extremely cramped interior means that penetrations will often knock out multiple crew members and modules in a single shot.

Despite this, the Semovente's armour is still capable of keeping out machine-gun fire from most angles, and its fully-encloses design offers protection aircraft machine-guns unlike many of its low-rank open-top contemporaries.

Mobility

Game Mode	Max Speed (km/h)		Weight (tons)	Engine power (horsepower)		Power-to-weight ratio (hp/ton)
	Forward	Reverse		Stock	Upgraded	Stock	Upgraded
Arcade	37	6	13.1	227	305	17.33	23.28
Realistic	34	6		142	160	10.84	12.21

The 75/18 M41 is reasonably mobile for a low-rank tank destroyer, hitting around 30km/h on flat ground off-road with a fairly fast hull traverse and a poor reverse speed.

Armaments

Main armament

75 mm 75/18 mod.34
Capacity			Vertical guidance	Horizontal guidance	Stabilizer
43			-12°/+22°	±18°	N/A
Turret rotation speed (°/s)
Mode	Stock	Upgraded	Prior + Full crew	Prior + Expert qualif.	Prior + Ace qualif.
Arcade	12.3	__.__	__.__	__.__	__.__
Realistic	8.3	__.__	__.__	__.__	__.__
Reloading rate (seconds)
Stock	Prior + Full crew	Prior + Expert qualif.	Prior + Ace qualif.
7.8	__.__	__.__	6.0

Ammunition

Penetration statistics
Ammunition	Type of warhead	Penetration in mm @ 90°
		10m	100m	500m	1000m	1500m	2000m
Granata Perforante da 75	APCBC	44	43	38	33	28	25
Granata mod.32	HE	10	10	9	9	9	9
Granata Perforante mod.32	APCBC	51	50	44	38	32	28
EPS M42	HEAT	100	100	100	100	100	100

Shell details
Ammunition	Type of warhead	Velocity in m/s	Projectile Mass in kg	Fuse delay in m:	Fuse sensitivity in mm:	Explosive Mass in g (TNT equivalent):	Normalization At 30° from horizontal:	Ricochet:
								0%	50%	100%
Granata Perforante da 75	APCBC	425	6.4	1.3	15	270	°	48°	63°	71°
Granata mod.32	HE	450	6.4	0.1	0.1	610	°	79°	80°	81°
Granata Perforante mod.32	APCBC	476	6.3	1.3	15	270	°	48°	63°	71°
EPS M42	HEAT	399	5.3	0.0	0.1	500	°	62°	69°	73°

Smoke characteristic
Ammunition	Velocity in m/s	Projectile Mass in kg	Screen radius in m	Screen time in s	Screen hold time in s:	Explosive Mass in g (TNT equivalent):
Gr. Fumogena	450	6.4	13	5	20	50

Ammo racks

Full ammo	1st rack empty	Visual discrepancy
43	1 (+42)	No

Machine guns

8 mm Breda Mod. 38
Pintle mount
Capacity (Belt capacity)				Fire rate (shots/minute)	Vertical guidance	Horizontal guidance
504 (24)				600	__°	__°

Usage in battles

The Semovente will struggle to be effective with the extremely poor penetration of its APHE rounds. With a max penetration of barely 50mm at point-blank range, the vehicle will have problems penetrating the angled front armour of many similar rank vehicles, with light-tanks, armoured cars and SPAA being the best targets. In a full up-tier, the Semovente will struggle to do any damage at all with stock shells, with the sole exception of light tanks and AA vehicles.

In this case, it is best for drivers to attempt to flank and shoot enemies from the side, where the powerful explosive capacity of the APHE shells offer excellent single-shot knock-out capability.

The vehicle's effectiveness improves massively once the HEAT shell is unlocked, with 100mm of penetration at all ranges. This allows for reliable penetration of practically all the Semovente's potential adversaries with the vehicle's most dangerous opponents being fast and agile light tanks such as the M22, which can easily penetrate the Semovente from close range and whose speed and size make a difficult target for the Semovente's low-velocity howitzer.

With the HEAT shell, the Semovente can make for an effective support vehicle, albeit one whose lack of survivability punishes positional mistakes harshly. The one thing to remember about the HEAT shell is that it sacrifices the one-shot capability of APHE, meaning that larger tanks will often take multiple hits to disable, and its even lower velocity makes its excellent long-range penetration difficult to exploit.

Pros and cons

Pros:

• Good penetration with the HEAT shell
• Top-mounted machine gun offers some utility not available to many low-rank tank destroyers
• 75/18 M41's position in the tech tree can allow for a decent aircraft and tank lineup with vehicles like the AB43 scout, M15/42 medium tank, and Re.2001 CB fighter-bomber

Cons:

• Poor armour and survivability
• Mediocre mobility
• Low-velocity gun with a slow reload makes long-range shots difficult
• Poor post-penetration damage with the HEAT shell, and terrible penetration with either APHE

History

The Semovente 75/18 was originally intended to be a self-propelled gun rather than a tank destroyer, with the War Thunder version being the later-model improved variant built upon the M41 tank chassis with improved armour.

In response to the poor effectiveness of existing Italian tank destroyer designs such as the 47/32 L40, the Semovente was pressed into service to combat US-built M3 Lee and Stuart tanks in service with the British Army in North Africa. Utilising a HEAT shell, the Semovente proved to be an effective counter to early-war British tanks, with its small size making it ideal for dug-in defensive positions where its lack of speed wasn't an issue.

In one engagement in 1942, Semovente vehicles of the Ariete Division repelled an attack from 40 British light and medium tanks, destroying 20 with no losses of their own. While the Semovente's HEAT shell proved effective against early-war tank designs, tougher Allied tanks such as the M4 Sherman represented a new challenge. This, as well as the Semovente's cramped interior, low-velocity gun and under-powered engine lead to the development of larger and faster dedicated tank destroyer designs with superior firepower.

Approximately 60 were built on the M40 tank chassis in early 1941, with another 162 built after that date on the M41 chassis. Two self-propelled gun (Semovente) battalions were assigned to the artillery regiment of each armored division, each containing 2-3 batteries of 4-6 AFV each. Approximately 250 more were built on the M42 chassis, also used by the M15/42 tank, starting in early 1943, which continued to use the 75/18 howitzer as the previous models because the planned gun for the M42 variant was not yet in service. At the time the plan was for the Italian medium tank battalions to change from three companies of tanks, to one of tanks and two of assault guns. In September, 1943, some 75/18s saw action against German forces. 178 were confiscated or built in occupied Italy by Germany after the Italian surrender, and used in Italy and the Balkans.

Media

Skin and Camouflages for the 75/18 M41 in Warthunder Live.

See also

Links to the articles on the War Thunder Wiki that you think will be useful for the reader, for example:

• reference to the series of the vehicles;
• links to approximate analogues of other nations and research trees.

External links

• [Wikipedia] Semovente da 75/18