M11/39

M11/39

AB 41

AS 42/47

M11/39

AB 41

AS 42/47

Italy

I Rank

Battle rating:

AB	RB	SB
1.0	1.0	1.0

Class:

Light tank

Research:2 900

Purchase:700

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Description

The Fiat-Ansaldo M11/39 is a rank I Italian medium tank with a battle rating of 1.0 (AB/RB/SB). It was introduced in Update 1.85 "Supersonic". Despite being classed as a Medium tank, it shares more in common with conventional tank destroyers.

General info

Survivability and armour

The M11/39 has fairly unimpressive protection overall at 30mm frontally. At common combat ranges it will be vulnerable to the vast majority of typical rounds, however it is frontally immune from heavy machine gun fire. The crew is made up of 3 total members, the Driver Gunner and Commander, the latter of which is positioned in the MG turret. An incoming shot into this turret will rarely one-shot the tank, but a shot into the drivers port will commonly see the vehicle knocked out. However it is fairly likely enemies will attempt to fire into the MG turret, which will likely only knock out the commander leaving all other assets of the tank completely functional, allowing you to drive off or return fire.

Mobility

The mobility of the M11/39 is quite average, it is fast and responsive enough to get around the map and change direction easily, but not fast enough to really take advantage of it's mobility. It wont outpace many enemy vehicles to advantageous positions into the map, and overall doesn't offer any advantage to the vehicle other than being adequately mobile. It's reactive mobility is fairly effective however, it can easily turn in place to face a different direction when upgraded which is necessary due to the hull mounted cannon. It can cruise off-road at 37 km/h in AB and 33 km/h in RB, so it isn't slow by any means, but not notably very fast either. The reverse is only 4-5 km/h as well, making it hard to back out of an unwanted engagement.

Armaments

Main armament

The M11/39 is equipped with a hull mounted 37mm cannon that fires an APHE round. Overall, the performance of the cannon and this round is largely unimpressive, at common combat ranges it can punch through between 35-25mm of flat armour, which means that it can potentially meet some vehicles that the round can't frontally penetrate without a very well aimed shot. It will struggle against the American Stuarts and the majority of French vehicles, meaning that this vehicles combat ability isn't hugely consistent. Additionally, it lacks the penetration performance to engage at ranges, as passed 800 meters or so, the penetration power falls off to only 20mm of flat penetration which means it will struggle to penetrate the vast majority of enemy vehicles, on top of this the cannon itself is fairly inaccurate. The round does contain 23 grams of explosive filler however, which is enough to one-shot enemy vehicles with 3 crew members or less fairly regularly, which is something to consider.

Ammunition

Penetration statistics
Ammunition	Type of warhead	Penetration in mm @ 90°
		10m	100m	500m	1000m	1500m	2000m
Granata Perforante da 37	APHE	39	36	26	17	12	8

Machine guns

The M11/39 is equipped with twin Breda Mod. 38 .30 Calibre machine guns in the Commander's turret with 24 rounds per gun. They have basically no viability against enemy armour and can only be use to knock out exposed crew members. However, they can potentially be used as an anti-air weapon as the twin machine guns will be enough to cripple enemy aircraft. In practice applying them in this way isn't very viable though, as they can't elevate high enough to be able to attack aircraft unless the aircraft is flying very low, or the tank is positioned on an angle giving it an artificially higher elevation. The machine guns can be used to attack aircraft, however it isn't regularly effective enough to consider this a key strategy.

Usage in battles

M11/39 passing a knocked out BT-7

Because of its various shortcomings, the M11/39 doesn't have a play-style that consistently works well every time, but certain ways of play are easily more consistent than others. One effective way to play is in ambush, lying in wait to engage enemies at close range, at distances the cannon is just too inaccurate and lacks the penetration required to be constantly effective, so playing it at close range negates those issues. It's also important to avoid situations where you could possibly meet an enemy on the move, as adjusting your angle to face the enemy tied with how unstable the cannon is when coming to a stop, means that enemy tanks will likely be able to get a shot off on you before you can accurately fire at them.

Ideally, you're going to want to engage at close range from a sedentary position, watching corners or covering cap points is where you'll likely see the most hostile tanks, so if you can find a good position in these locations you will likely pick up a few kills. Due to the small size of the M11, it might tank enemies a few seconds longer than normal to identify you as a threat, especially if you're positioned out of the way, making this vehicle even more adequately suited to the ambush role.

It's also important to note which tanks you'll struggle engaging, the M11 lacks the penetration to engage most French tanks and the late American Stuarts and HMCs, so it's a good idea to look at the armour layout of these vehicles to identify weak spots, if an enemy comes into sight that you can't easily penetrate, refrain from engaging it unless it presents a side shot, there's no use firing if you can't reliably cut through the armour. The M11/39 is a more defensive tank when compared to its contemporaries, and if you can identify a good camping position on any given map, the M11 will likely perform well enough.

Pros and cons

Pros:

• Machine guns have anti-air potential
• Relatively fast reload
• Low profile

Cons:

• Poor penetration
• Fairly inaccurate main gun
• Inadequate performance at range
• Low survivability

History

This pre-war design was intended to be the standard Italian medium tank, equipping medium tank battalions in the armoured divisions. However, the positioning of the medium-velocity 37mm main armament in a limited-traverse hull mounting was short-sighted and quickly lost favour. The tank had no radio. Only 100 were built before Italy moved on to the M13/40. Twenty-four served, in 4-tank platoons, with the Medium Special Tank Company (Compagnia Speciale Carri M) in the East African Armored Task Force in Italian East Africa until the Italians there were defeated in June 1941. Another 70 were deployed with the 1st and 2nd Medium Tank Battalions, which deployed to Libya in summer, 1940, and were all either destroyed or captured by British forces by early February 1941.

Media

• 

  M11/39 in desert livery

• 

  M11/39 In Winter camouflage

• 

  M11/39 Engaging an enemy T-26

• 

  The M11/39 in standard livery

• 

  M11/39 engaging an enemy M8 HMC

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

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• topic on the official game forum;
• encyclopedia page on tank;
• other literature.