He needs to look backwards to see where he is driving at the same time as firing forwards which is a very difficult job to do. The driver on the other hand has to perform two jobs at once: firing and driving. The easiest and safest job is the engineer as he only needs to fix things and when the tank is hit he can simply jump off to safety. In a command tank, a trailer is attached to the back of the tank where the commanding officer stands. Sometimes an anti-aircraft gunner is seated on top of the tank if that weapon is present. The engineer sits in between two wheels in the tank tracks as pictured on the left. His upper body stays outside the tank as there is no room inside. The occupant gets a small space behind the fuel tank to put his legs in. The occupant of the vehicle acts as the driver/gunner while the person riding on the exterior refuels the tank every five minutes and carries out constant maintenance work.

This was seen as a brilliant move in Italy and the Italian generals used the same tactic throughout the rest of the war.Įach Italian tank has one person inside it and one person outside it. Thanks to this, their tanks could run away from an enemy machine gun before it had a chance to fire.

They had already made Lamborghinis, Ferraris and Maseratis, so all they needed to do was put an engine from one of those into a bathtub with wheels and their tank was born. To improve on the tanks' design, the Italians played to their strengths. It was adopted as the original Italian tanks were so useless against the British that a machine gun could take the tank out. This doctrine was developed thanks to the North African Campaign, where the Italians and later Germans fought against the British Commonwealth, the Free French, and the Greeks.

Instead of the conventional doctrine of improving armour and firepower, the Italians design each new tank faster than the one before. The Italians, after centuries of warfare in fighting and losing against men with spears, have adopted a doctrine to building their tanks that no other world power has adopted. Italian tanks are unique machines of war.

The current main battle tank of the Italian army.

Italian modern tanks