M13/40 (II)

M13/40 (II)

M13/40 (II)

Italy

I Rank

Battle rating:

AB	RB	SB
2.0	2.0	2.0

Class:

PREMIUM

Medium tank

Purchase:400

Show in game

This page is about the medium tank M13/40 (II). For other uses, see M13/40 (Family).

Description

The Fiat-Ansaldo M13/40 II Serie (shortened as M13/40 (II)) is a gift Rank I Italian medium tank with a battle rating of 2.0 (AB/RB/SB). It was introduced during Update 1.85 "Supersonic" as a battle reward in the 2018 War Thunder Festivities. It has since been available for purchase with Golden Eagles.

The M13/40 (II) is nearly identical to its other in-game variants. Compared to the M13/40 (I), it has 5 degrees worse gun depression, but its reload rate now matches other rank 1 tanks, being 3.5 seconds after experting the crew. Compared to the M13/40 (III), it just has worse gun depression with everything else being same.

Visually, it can be distinguished from the mark I by its default African camouflage and folded antenna on the right side (left if head-on), and by the lack of chassis parts on top of its left track (right if head-on). It can be distinguished from the mark III only by lack of the block on top of the middle of the turret.

An average gun for its BR, it can penetrate the front of some of the tanks it will face and one-shot them. It has decent armour, strong enough to bounce shots at high angle. The worst aspect of the M13/40 (II), as with the rest of them, is its speed. Poor acceleration makes it hard to achieve its top speed of 32 km/h, and with worse vertical angles it's even less worth it to go up hills.

General info

Survivability and armour

Armour is same as all M13/40 - Angle your tank to have 36 to 50 mm effective armour thickness and use it to block enemy shots. Destroy British tanks as soon as possible, as every single one of them can destroy your tank.

However, the default camouflage is now the desert one, which means you will be at a disadvantage on non-desert maps at first in terms of stealth.

Mobility

Mobility is the same as M13/40 (I) - It is rather slow and is unable to scale hills well, 32 km/h being its top speed, reachable only on flat land.

Mobility characteristic
Weight (tons)	Add-on Armor weight (tons)	Max speed (km/h)
13.6	N/A	35 (AB)
		32 (RB/SB)
Engine power (horsepower)
Mode	Stock	Upgraded
Arcade	201	248
Realistic/Simulator	115	130
Power-to-weight ratio (hp/ton)
Mode	Stock	Upgraded
Arcade	14.78	18.24
Realistic/Simulator	8.46	9.56

Armaments

Main armament

Like the other M13/40s, it has a 47 mm gun with ammunition capable of destroying most of tanks in one shot, assuming they are within 200 m range. Upgraded ammunition improves performance against angled tanks and damage potential at long range.

47 mm 47/32 mod.35
Capacity			Vertical guidance	Horizontal guidance	Stabilizer
87			-10°/+25°	±180°	N/A
Turret rotation speed (°/s)
Mode	Stock	Upgraded	Prior + Full crew	Prior + Expert qualif.	Prior + Ace qualif.
Arcade	13.33	__.__	__.__	__.__	__.__
Realistic	8.33	__.__	__.__	__.__	__.__
Reloading rate (seconds)
Stock	Prior + Full crew	Prior + Expert qualif.	Prior + Ace qualif.
3.77	__.__	__.__	__.__

Ammunition

Penetration statistics
Ammunition	Type of warhead	Penetration in mm @ 90°
		10m	100m	500m	1000m	1500m	2000m
Granata Perforante mod.35	APHE	54	52	40	30	22	16
Granata Perforante mod.39	APBC	53	52	45	39	33	28

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 mod.35	APHE	630	1.5	1.2	15	30	°	47°	60°	65°
Granata Perforante mod.39	APBC	630	1.4	1.2	15	30	°	48°	63°	71°

Ammo racks

Full ammo	1st rack empty	2nd rack empty	3rd rack empty	4th rack empty	5th rack empty	6th rack empty	Visual discrepancy
87	XX (X+)	(+)	(+)	(+)	(+)	(+)	No

Machine guns

The coaxial-mounted machine gun can be used against open topped vehicles and against strafing planes. The pintle-mounted machine gun is hard to use for anything, as it's completely fixed in place.

8 mm Breda Mod. 38
Coaxial mount
Capacity (Belt capacity)				Fire rate (shots/minute)	Vertical guidance	Horizontal guidance
1,524 (24)				600	N/A	N/A
Pintle mount
Capacity (Belt capacity)				Fire rate (shots/minute)	Vertical guidance	Horizontal guidance
1,524 (24)				600	__°	__°

Usage in battles

Like the M13/40 (I), it can be used as a breakthrough tank to push through enemy defences and slowly, but surely destroy them, while driving at them at an angle to maximise armour effectiveness. This role is reinforced by a fact that this tank has better reload rate and doesn't have to suffer two counter-shots for one, and can destroy all the tanks that pop out of cover with nearly no break.

Just as with other models, you can also use flank route to go along with your team and to destroy every enemy tank that tries to flank your team.

The important difference from other models is that your gun depression is somewhat worse, so scaling hills is even more risky and has less worth than before. Instead, focus on pushing enemy tanks, as your fire rate when trained is 3.5 seconds, and your ammunition is good enough to destroy most tanks in one shot.

Pros and cons

Pros:

• Like all M13/40 tanks, has armour decent enough to break through enemy lines when angled
• Compared to mark I, reload speed upgrade allows it to dominate over groups of enemy tanks while they try to figure your armour out
• Allows player to use full M13/40 lineup and dismiss all the other Italian rank 1 tanks, which is arguably for the best

Cons:

• Still struggles at fighting other heavily armoured tanks at 500 m range
• Has worse gun depression than either of the reserve Italian tanks

History

Intended to replace the unsatisfactory M11/39, the M13/40 retained its main mechanical features, but with a more powerful gun in a fully rotating turret. The M13 was slow, unreliable, and suffered from the tank commander doubling as the gunner. Similar to early Russian and French tanks, it did not receive radios as standard equipment until 1942. Nevertheless, it became the standard Italian medium tank from 1941 on, and is the best known Italian tank of the war. In War Thunder, the M13/40 (II) represents those made in the mid part of the production run, with hydraulic traverse gears and fixed radio installations.

It first saw service with the 3rd Medium Tank Battalion (Battaglione Carri M) in Libya's Sollum-Halfaya region. It later equipped 132nd "Ariete (Ram)" Armoured Division (Divisione Corazzata) in North Africa. From January to April of 1941, it also saw action in Yugoslavia and Greece with the 131st Centauro (Centaur) and 133rd Littorio armoured divisions. For a short time after the first rush of British victories in North Africa in early 1941, there were enough captured M13s to equip a British armoured unit, 6th Royal Tank Regiment, in Libya. These were all lost in turn to Rommel's offensive in March of that year. In late August of 1941, Italian medium tank platoons increased their number from four to five.

When Italy surrendered in September 1943, 22 M13s were captured by Germany, who handed them over to the Italian fascist forces. It is uncertain how many in total were produced, as many were converted to M14/41s: estimates range from 710 to 1,049.

Media

Excellent additions to the article would be video guides, screenshots from the game, and photos.

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 the tank;
• other literature.