P43 tank Information

The P43 was an Italian heavy tank, remained at the planning stage and developed parallel to the P26/40 tank.

The P43 or P 30/43 was developed by FIAT and Ansaldo simultaneously with P26/40, which was supposed to be a heavier version. The vehicle in fact would have weighed 30 tons and would have mounted an engine of 420 hp. The gun was the same as the P.26 - the 75/34 mm cannon. However still in the design phase was proposed the 90/42 gun derived from anti-aircraft cannone 90/53, or the 105/25 mm cannon mounted on semoventi.

A photograph of P43 as a wooden model exists (probably on a smaller scale) along with other models of P40 and P43 bis, 30 tons with cannon that looks like it could be a lighter version of the 90/53 piece. In the same picture there is a model of a German Panther version slightly smaller and with probably 90/53 cannon, that the Germanic part stigmatized as a plagiarism of the Panther tank that Italy had received blueprints for the production in license. It seems that this model has received the abbreviation P43 bis (perhaps for the observed inability to get quickly to the production of the P43 with a piece of 90 mm).

This overlap of studies can be originated either by news from the Russian front on the new Soviet medium tank T-34/85 of 32 tons and with 85 mm cannon derived from the anti-aircraft gun either the availability of data and drawings of the German Panther.

According to various publications the engines should have been these:

Frontal protection of 80/100 mm would guarantee equal performance with the machines designed by other nations, such as the Russian 1944 Iosef Stalin 2 of 44 tons (which was 122 mm), the Tiger I of 57 tons and higher than the Panther of 45 tons, which was 80 mm.

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