AB41 Platoon

The Puma's fatter Italian brother.

The Autoblinda 41(AB41) was an Italian armored car in service in the Italian Armed forces from 1941 until the 1950s.

Mid War

Le Statische

Le Statische de OP

IRL

The AB41 is part of a long tradition of Italian tinkering in armored cars. See, the Italians were experimenting with armored cars in WWI and were using them as colonial police vehicles in the post-war period. After all, what were those pesky minorities gonna do, build AT guns? Thus, the designs kind of became more dated due to the lack of any real power that threatened them, and the models they had worked well enough. Don't forget all that mountain warfare, which an armored car would be great in, because they are lighter than those fat Churchills and French B1s.

However, this all changed when the Funny Spider-people convinced Il Duce that declaring war on France and Britain was a good idea. This resulted in warfare in Africa, and all those older armored cars suddenly started being not good. As a result, there was a request put in for a new armored car. FIAT answered the call and developed a vehicle that sported two mgs, the AB40. The 40 was an interwar vehicle primarily designed for policing duties. So when it was quickly accepted into service, the lack of armament was overall a net negative, not providing enough fire support for infantry or against armored vehicles. This was "solved" when they shoved a 20mm autocannon to provide extra dakka.

Overall the AB41 was solid as a recon vehicle. It had excellent off-road capabilities, had an ok armament, and could move quickly forward or backward, due to the vehicle being designed in such a fashion to facilitate faster relocation, and even had a rear driver's position for this. The AB41 had a good shape to ping off bullets and was largely immune to small arms fire, and had decent speed, performance, and reliability.

This didn't stop the Italians from employing it as a mainline combat vehicle, something it was never designed for, and took heavy casualties. The M2, or even a Boyes was adequate to puncture their armor, and the steering system required constant maintenance for maximum efficiency. The commander was also overworked, being the gunner and loader in addition to literally everything else he had to do as a commander, not to mentioned the cramped turret and only a mediocre comm system to communicate with other members of the crew. In spite of these shortcomings, the vehicle served everywhere until the 50s, where it was finally withdrawn after superior armored vehicles had been procured to suppress communists.

AB41 Platones (Platoons) were deployed in groups of 4 vehicles, further subdivided into Coppias (couples) which had two vehicles each. In spite of the overall criticism, the AB41 was a mainstay and overall one of the better armor designs of the war for the Italians. There is a reason that the Germans resumed their production in the RSI after Italy's capitulation.

Italian Forces in Flames of War
Tanks:	Renault R-35 - P-26/40 - L6/40 - M14/41
Transports:
Infantry:	Italian Parachutist Platoon - Italian Assault Engineer Platoon - Bersaglieri Platoon - Parachutist MG Platoon - Bersaglieri MG Platoon
Artillery:	Parachutist Mortar Platoon - Bersaglieri Mortar Platoon - 47mm Anti-tank - 100mm Howitzer - 88mm Anti-tank
Tank Destroyers and Assault guns:	Semovente 90mm Assault Gun - Semovente 75mm Assault Gun - Semovente Assault Gun
Armored Cars:	AB41 Platoon
Aircraft:	CR.42
Anti-Aircraft:	Lancia 90mm